This article reports on an analysis of reflections by students and staff following their experience of a student-staff partnership which conducted a case study exploring student mental health in higher education. During the primary project, several students commented on the benefits of the partnership. Furthermore, following completion of the…

Institutional researchers are often tasked with assessing why college-wide initiatives succeed or fail. This can be a difficult task: researchers need to discriminate between multiple feasible explanations, work with limited data, and produce compelling narratives. Process tracing is a qualitative methodology that enables researchers to make valid…

To keep up with rapid evolutions in technical and scientific developments, countries must create competitive dynamics that enable key actors to generate high-tech projects, boosting both a country's productivity and economic development. Higher education institutions (HEIs), with their intellectual capital and as core generators of knowledge, are…

In this paper, four critical friends meet to discuss qualitative research practices. Together they put one of their own case studies under the knife and deconstruct it to investigate the possibilities that knowledge work is complicated not only by the dynamics of socially constructed enterprises and the actors involved therein, but by the…

This article examines the language used to discuss transgender people on university campuses. This study asks how, despite seemingly benefitting transgender people, the discourses carried by the documents that discuss trans people may actually undermine the intended goals of policy initiatives. For example, a report on the status of transgender…

Utilizing the exploratory case study methodology, the author examines the conditions that support and limit a Latina-based student organization at a predominately White institution of higher education. Seven organizational structures were found to influence the organization's ability to advance its aims, from interviews, documents, observations,…

Is there a need for dance to enter higher education in Greece? Can contemporary dance be viewed as a discipline on its own right? These questions inspired the research conducted in three case study institutions (out of six that exist) in Greece, examining the reality within them as experienced by dance students, lecturers, course leaders and the…

Globally, a clarion call has been made for higher education institutions to establish creative and effective research capacity-building systems with the purpose of developing a next generation of scholars. The training and skills development of a researcher entail a process of increasing levels of participation in diverse communities of practice.…

This critical ethnographic case study draws on Indigenous and minority students' process of learning English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in Mexico. The study specifically focuses on students who enrolled in a program called "A Wager with the Future." The aim of the study is to identify and understand contributing factors in these…

A single qualitative case study design was used to determine the opinions of administrators and faculty from a community college that is considered to be transitioning to a learning-centered college. The researcher conducted the case study to describe, explain, and evaluate the phenomenon. The researcher also recorded facilitators or roadblocks…

In this paper we present a case study about a community of practice's foundation and development among Italian teachers, researchers and university students who participated in a European project aimed at developing and testing innovative pedagogical models and technologies for collaborative knowledge building. Forty-five people (34 teachers, five…

Researchers interested in post-secondary instruction often emphasize the importance of the first-year experience for college students. Despite this focus, qualitative studies of student perceptions are decidedly rare. This essay is a partial report of the findings from conducting qualitative interviews with first-year students about their…

According to Lundeberg, Fox, and Punccohar (1994), the reason that there are fewer women in certain professions is because of a lack of self-confidence. In a review of the literature, they found studies reporting a lack of self-confidence in sixth-grade girls, high school students, and women in undergraduate and graduate school. In her work on…

We ground Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) in studies of workplace practices from a mathematical point of view. We draw on multiple case study visits by college students and teacher-researchers to workplaces. By asking questions that "open boxes", we "outsiders and boundary-crossers" sought to expose contradictions between College and…

"Seven Rules for Social Research" teaches social scientists how to get the most out of their technical skills and tools, providing a resource that fully describes the strategies and concepts no researcher or student of human behavior can do without. Glenn Firebaugh provides indispensable practical guidance for anyone doing research in the social…