Dual enrollment policies and programs, where students earn both high school and college credits, have been scaled up across the United States in the last two decades. In this mixed methods study, we survey high school principals in Ohio and Texas, two states with robust dual enrollment policies. The study addressed one broad research question:…

This transcendental phenomenological study will explore the lived experiences of Southern Texas Mexican American/Chicana women pursuing a doctorate. The Chicana's experience achieving a doctorate has been overlooked by the literature, with much of the research on Mexican American women being outdated or focusing on completing high school or…

In this large-scale qualitative study, we use an emergent design to explore pre-service teachers' (PST) motivations to enter the profession. We open-code 2,798 PSTs responses to the directive, 'Explain why you decided to become a teacher', given over the course of a six-year period from one large Texas teacher preparation programme. Using constant…

Student retention has not changed in almost 40 years despite the plethora of attention. Maybe it is time to look at it differently. The study examines the relationships of parental education level, educational aspirations, and engagement. The National Survey of Student Engagement data were used in the analyses, but it raised questions about the…

The motivation of linguistically diverse young adults to learn Korean as a Foreign Language (KFL) was studied at a university on the US-Mexico border. This diglossic setting permitted a complex investigation of multiple elements, including L2-motivation theoretical attributes, exposure to Korean contemporary pop culture, and the linguistic and…

This study sought to investigate the psychological network structure of adult Spanish heritage language (HL) learners' motivational profile by considering interconnections among the following variables: the possible HL selves, family influence, intended HL learning effort, HL achievement goal orientations, HL enjoyment, HL anxiety, perceived…

College students engage with religion, faith, and spirituality for a variety of reasons; however, current literature exploring these motivations is limited. We utilised a constructivist, qualitative, phenomenological design and surveyed 201 students to understand their motivations for pursuing faith, religion, or spirituality. Of those surveyed,…

Undocumented children immigrants in the United States experience significant hurdles pursuing higher education due to their illegal status, resulting in lower rates of college attendance for children arriving before the age of 14 than U.S. born children. The 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program aims, in part, to remove these…

Teaching robotics courses online is challenging due to the complexity of the interdisciplinary topics involved. One of the most challenging topics is 3D coordinate transformations. Students often struggle to grasp the concept of 3D coordinate transformations and their relevance to real-world robotic applications. This paper applies the Scholarship…

Earning a bachelor's degree or work certificate can close social equity gaps and increase social mobility and economic stability in American society. Barriers exist to upward mobility for underrepresented groups (first-generation, low socioeconomic, African American, and Hispanic). Underrepresented students are falling below their peers in…

The Maroon & White Leadership Program at Texas A&M University is a formal leadership program that involves students completing eight leadership experiences including leadership education, training, and development dimensions. Students also reflect on each leadership experience and meet with a leadership coach to synthesize the experience.…

Assessing the degree to which students engage and learn from their online courses will be important as online courses are becoming more ubiquitous. This study sought to capture student perceptions of their independence as learners, their level of engagement, their effort exerted, and the amount of information they learned in online courses. The…

In this qualitative case study, using Freire's theory of critical consciousness development, we examined the influence of a 1-credit immigration policy service-learning course on college students' motivations to act against immigration injustices. We found that after witnessing immigration issues at the Lower Rio Grande Valley area in Texas,…

Although there is high enrollment in online college courses, there are concerns about student engagement (Martin & Bolliger, 2018; Dumford & Miller, 2018). Gamification has been shown to have the potential to improve student engagement. The purpose of the study was to describe how academic student engagement is impacted by Nicholson's…

College-level students experience various life stressors that impact them academically, mentally, and physically. They struggle to navigate through those stressors; however, campus counseling services are underutilized. (Laidlaw et al., 2016). The central purpose of this Dissertation in Practice was to understand college-level students' perception…