The purpose of this case study was to understand the impact of stress, depression, and anxiety on African American students' success during their first undergraduate semester at House A&M University. The terms stress, depression, and anxiety were defined respectively as the feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease, typically about an imminent…

The purpose of this study was to explore the writing experiences of at-risk college freshmen. The term at-risk applies to students who entered college deemed under prepared for success with college level writing demands. An examination of previous high school writing courses was explored in hopes of understanding the experiences that shaped their…

In this study, we sought to understand assessment-related attitudes and authentic experiences of evaluation anxiety with a sample of first-year university students. We focused on identifying: (a) why students had reported high levels of anxiety on a recent, grade-bearing assessment, and (b) how their attitudes toward assessment type and weighting…

This study investigates how students experienced a sense of place and a sense of belonging in both in-person and virtual learning environments by analyzing student interview data. As educators and university students grapple with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, we consider how students experience the presence and absence of sense of place and…

Existing research into the usage of intelligent tutoring systems (ITSs) has been predominantly quantitative. Studies and metanalyses suggest that ITSs are second only to human tutors with respect to improving student learning outcomes; and that there are no significant differences between learning with an ITS versus a human tutor. This…

Climate change has not been well understood by high school students in the US and the topic is often connected to misconceptions, which is especially damaging since accurate understandings of the concepts are strongly predictive of intent to do something about it. We use data from a national (US) survey of first year college students to identify…

The transition from secondary education to the first year of higher education is a phase in which students are faced with many challenges. First-year students may lack the academic capital that is needed to understand explicit and implicit rules of higher education. We investigated students' participation in a preacademic program and the…

This study explores the implementation of e-learning strategies to enhance workplace English competence. The focus is on a semester module that consists of approximately 10,000 first-year university students in an ODeL context in South Africa. The study's objective was to collect data and contribute to the field of language learning in the…

Student affairs practitioners have essential roles to play in assisting students in concretising a sense of hope. However, more research is needed to explore the role of hope amongst university students during the first-year experience. This article reports on a mixed methods study that explored hope in the context of the first-year experience.…

Formal architectural education is inadequate for students in the current dynamic world where visual content and speed have become determinative. Particularly, freshman-year architecture students have difficulties in this process. In order to facilitate this process, dynamic methods, in which the student is interactive, should be included more in…

Purpose: This study aimed to develop video-based e-module for Mathematics in Nature lessons and documented students' learning experiences in using the e-modules in a flipped classroom model. Method: The participants of this study were 113 first year college students and 10 randomly selected students for an in-depth interview. The research…

National, state, and institutional data has indicated years of minimal increases in persistence; all while institutions continue to implement new strategies that they believe will increase persistence. What institutions often lack is understanding the lived experiences of first-time-in-college students who successfully persisted from their first…

This study was conducted to explore the effects of an augmented-reality (AR) creative project on English L2 learners' perceptions of creativity, as well as to investigate how to stimulate students' learning motivation. The AR project was developed and integrated into the course syllabus of a university English class, and 39 Taiwanese freshmen…

Educators and policymakers have continued to search for the ideal medium for gauging learning and teacher accountability. After nearly 50 years since the inception of assessments to prove minimum competency, many attempts have been made to reform the process and the assessment tool. With the current focus in education being on career and college…

This dissertation explored the experiences of 16 undergraduate students across four cohorts who chose to begin college by participating in a first-year experience program abroad in London, England. Through the use of individual interviews and participant observation, this study sought to understand what influenced students' decision making to…