In the present study, using a relational efficacy framework, I examined the advisory working alliance and its associations with research self-efficacy among clinical and counseling psychology PhD students. Moreover, I examined whether the research training environment (RTE) and relation-inferred self-efficacy (RISE) mediated the relationship…

Employees in the workplace continue to exhibit low levels of engagement and organizational commitment that impede change initiatives, and despite more than 70 years of research on organization change, higher education organizations fail to regularly implement and institutionalize effective change. This study examined the role a sense of community…

There is evidence that participating in physical exercise reduces stress and the risk of many physical maladies. Exercise is also correlated with higher levels of approach motivation, or a tendency to approach challenge as an opportunity for growth or improvement instead of an opportunity for failure. To date, most research on this relationship…

This study explored the factors that impact students' perception of technology benefits and their impact on overall university student satisfaction of 522 undergraduate students at a large Midwestern research university. The purpose of the study was to identify personal (input) and environmental measures that impact student's overall university…

The primary purpose of this study was to collect evidence on the construct validity of grit using convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity principles. To accomplish this purpose and extend previous research on grit, college students from two schools completed an instrument comprised of a cognitive ability test, and a questionnaire. The…

This dissertation builds on an alternative framework for evaluation of science, technology and innovation (STI) outcomes--the scientific & technical (S&T) human capital which was developed by Bozeman, Dietz and Gaughan (2001). At its core, this framework looks beyond simple economic and publication metrics and instead focuses on…

Self-generated questions are a central mechanism for learning, yet students' questions are often infrequent during classroom instruction. As a result, little is known about the nature of student questioning during typical instructional contexts such as listening to a lecture, including the extent and nature of student-generated questions, how…

This study considered whether unmet financial need served as a predictor of retention and how the addition of lottery tuition assistance (LTA) to a financial aid package reduced unmet financial need. Retention was defined as a student who started in Fall, 2008 and returned in Fall, 2009.The two-year college, Greenville Technical College,…

For decades, higher education institutions have been increasingly reliant upon part-time faculty. As the role of part-time faculty in colleges and universities has evolved and gained prominence, it is increasingly important to gain a deeper understanding of their perceptions of job involvement considered as potential predictor of turnover and…

Whereas sleep is often thought of as a common health issue among college students, few, if any, researchers have comprehensively evaluated correlates and predictors of sleep quality and quantity within this population. Most often, studies of this type are used by researchers to assess particular categories of correlates and predictors (e.g.,…

Institutions of higher learning are engaged in a difficult process of ensuring that more students are successful in student learning and persist into future coursework. Four-year and two-year institutions differ greatly in their approaches to dealing with academic progress and degree completion. With the integration of a variety of technologies…

Our connections to the digital world are invoked by brands, but the intersection of branding and interaction design is still an under-investigated area. Particularly, current websites are designed not only to support essential user tasks, but also to communicate an institution's intended brand values and traits. What we do not yet know, however,…

The objective of this dissertation was to evaluate a bystander behavior program at the Jefferson College of Health Sciences (JCHS) in Roanoke, Virginia. Specifically, this dissertation examined the: (1) preliminary measurement properties of a newly developed bystander behavior intention scale; (2) impact of the bystander intervention at JCHS; and…

Several facets of the undergraduate experience have been linked with the importance students assign to prosocial values (e.g., helping people in need), including academic major, exposure to social and cultural diversity, community service, and a prosocial institutional ethos. However, these factors have not been examined within a single framework…

Reading is a complex process involving numerous skills and abilities contributing to acquiring meaning from text. Individuals without the requisite reading skills will have difficulty not only in school but throughout their lifetimes. The purpose of the study was to compare the reading ability of incoming college freshmen with that of adults with…