This paper is a continuation of a previous article, "Teaching Students to "Cook": Promoting Reading in the First Year Experience Course," The Learning Assistance Review 14 (2), on the importance of teaching critical thinking through the foundational skills of analytical reading and writing within the First Year Experience (FYE)…

This paper examines how students' experiences of learning to program are affected by feelings of fear, using a phenomenological approach to elicit rich descriptions of personal experiences from the narratives of final year undergraduate students. In the course of reviewing current work concerning learning or teaching programming, certain focal…

In light of rapid demographic shifts and legal challenges to affirmative action in the United States, the issue of diversity on college campuses is of increasing importance. Most syntheses of research on diversity interactions and educational outcomes have focused on attitude change, such as reductions in prejudice or racial bias. Despite the…

This paper examines the effects of alcohol consumption on university undergraduate students in eight management schools in the province of Ontario, Canada. The study establishes two contrasting groups--the socially oriented and the academically oriented. It elaborates on the potential consequences that excessive drinking may have on the learning,…

This qualitative study focused on the experiences of eight male first-generation college students attending Kenmont College (pseudonym), a highly selective, residential liberal arts college located in the Midwestern United States. While first-generation college students have been studied in various contexts, very little is known about what…

The National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), launched in 2000 and updated in 2013, documents dimensions of quality in undergraduate education and provides information and assistance to colleges, universities, and other organizations to improve student learning. Its primary activity is annually surveying college students to assess the extent…

Eight students from mainland China chart their learning journeys across national and continental boundaries and socio-cultural contexts. The five women and three men structure their experiences of studying in China and the West around the turning points and life changing choices they made in chasing their dreams. They embody its emergent…

The primary purpose of this study was to explore the personal experiences of female and male engineering students in both Division I (17 females and 16 males) and Division II (11 females and 11 males) programs. Analyses of narratives of 55 undergraduate engineering students revealed that the sociocultural experiences of female and male students…

Little is known about levels of personal growth attributed by students to typical college life experiences. This paper documents two studies of student self-reported and posttraumatic growth and compares growth levels across populations. Both studies measure student attributions of cause to academic and non-academic experiences, respectively. It…

Education is one key to economic prosperity. However, in a society bolstered by patriarchal systems, economic and educational inequalities exist among the genders. The purpose of this study was to determine whether certain collegiate experiences predict undergraduate women's expectation to enroll in graduate study and to determine if the…

Online degree programs have been one of many institutional innovations related to the enrollment growth in higher education over the last decade. The changing format of instruction alters the practice of student affairs in the virtual learning environment. This shift requires faculty, administrators, and student affairs professionals to examine…

This paper uses the metaphor of trees and their tendency to sway with the wind and grow new leaves and branches to represent teacher candidates as diverse learners who come to our classes with their own experiences and understandings. This collaborative research study analyzed a particular cohort of candidates' evidence of sway and how the sway…

The Student Experience in the Research University (SERU) Project is a collaborative effort among academic scholars and institutional researchers devoted to collecting new data and providing policy-relevant analysis of exactly these questions. Its purpose is to study in depth the undergraduate experience and, at the same time, through systematic…

This article examines the significance of place and location at a time when mobile and networked technologies allow students access from a diversity of contexts. The article reports a cultural probe exercise. Over a 24-hour period, undergraduate students received SMS text messages and recorded answers to a fixed set of prompt questions using a…

This study explored the response of 28, second year undergraduate students to an innovative approach to a five-day solo. Periods of solitude are more likely to lead to positive outcomes when they are freely chosen than when they are programmed as part of a course. The extent to which a programmed solo can be "freely chosen" by the…