Purpose is an indicator of healthy human development and believed by some theorists and educators to be an important outcome of college. The aim of this study was to test the potential for assessing purpose using a person-centered analysis, thereby providing more individual-specific understanding of students' purpose development, and second by…

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to explore how college students described their experiences with academic advising as it pertained to cognitive presence, social presence, and teaching presence at a community college in Southern California. Cognitive presence, social presence, and teaching presence are elements of the…

This multi-site, embedded case study drew on qualitative data to uncover how Black Student Unions (BSUs) within a large California university system bridged or buffered Black student experiences. The central purpose of this case study was to gain an understanding of the Black students' experiences within the BSU, framing the overarching research…

This article reports on a multi-method study of a high school course in data science, finding that students who take data science take more mathematics courses than those who do not, there are more under-represented students in data science than is typical for other advanced mathematics courses; that the students who take data science are more…

Community college students with disabilities (SWD) find disability-related challenges in online learning. Online learning is plagued with high withdrawal rates that impede educational goal completion. Prior to this study, the reasons for asynchronous online course withdrawal of community college SWD were not known. The purpose of this qualitative…

The COVID-19 pandemic changed the delivery of education as many occupational therapy (OT) programs temporarily transitioned to remote learning. The purpose of this article is to describe the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the National Board for Certification in Occupational Therapy (NBCOT) pass rates. A mixed methods research design was used…

In a time of increasing economic inequality, lower levels of government investment in higher education, and rising tuition costs, students vying for a college degree experience financial concerns as important influences on their college experience. An emerging body of literature has focused on the relationship between student finances and academic…

Many important voices--including The National Council for Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), the Dana Center's Launch Years initiative, and others--advocate for expanding the traditional course offerings in high school mathematics and statistics to include courses such as the Introduction to Data Science (IDS). To date, the research on the IDS course…

School leaders across the state of California seek tools to reduce the use of exclusionary discipline and improve school climates. Research suggests that restorative practices (RPs) have the potential to achieve these ends, particularly when staff throughout the school implement, and students throughout the school experience, these practices.…

A new "bilingual/plurilingual education renaissance" in California was ushered in with the passage of state Proposition 58 in 2016. Program planners, however, have struggled to meet the need for bilingual/plurilingual teachers within a linguistic context ravaged by two decades of restrictive policies. This restrictionism has resulted in…

Students' experiences of boredom at school are receiving increased research attention. Most inquiries to date have focused on how often students experience boredom in classroom situations and in specific subject areas. Despite its frequency, limited research efforts have explored how students' boredom experiences might inform positive education…

Postsecondary education is associated with achieving economic self-sufficiency and other positive outcomes. Young people in foster care face challenges pursuing postsecondary education, which can lead to them being less likely than their peers to enroll in college and less likely to earn a degree when enrolled. One federal initiative meant to…

This qualitative study explored the challenges and experiences of part-time enrolled Latina students moving through a Hispanic-serving California community College (HSCCC). Grounded in Schlossberg's transition theory, the 4 S system, and Latino critical race theory (LatCrit), the study captures the testimonios of 12 testimonialistas to examine…

Faculty-in-residence programs have recently returned to the forefront in higher education. This paper investigates how residential students experienced a recently established faculty-in-residence (FIR) program at a mid-sized public university in Southern California. Drawing on existing research on faculty-student interaction, the paper explores…

Regardless of entry point, nearly all potential speech-language pathologists (SLPs) in the United States (US) share the experience of navigating the arduous application process for graduate school. For students of color, especially first-generation students, this application process can serve to cause them to question whether they belong in the…