Higher education institutions are facing a major challenge in retaining 1st-year college students and engaging them in meaningful activities and programs to promote their sense of belonging (Strayhorn, 2012; Astin, 1993). Though a few belonging intervention practices have been studied (Perrell, 2018; Peck, 2011), there is a lack of understanding…

College retention is a primary focus within many institutions of higher education; however, retention efforts have largely been unsuccessful in impacting first-year completion rates and eventual degree attainment. Drawing on research that demonstrates the value of a strong faculty-student relationship and an engaging classroom environment, this…

Development and use of validated assessments in physics provide insight into student understanding of physics concepts and can be utilized to track student learning across time and instructional strategies. These tools can be used to gauge the efficacy of interventions designed to support students and persistence, and allow instructors to make…

This mixed methods study yielded two explanatory models for better understanding of the association between socioacademic factors and gendered racial identity among African American community college women. The quantitative portion explored the degree to which racial identity attitudes and sense of belonging with faculty were predictors of…

Black and Latino men are attending college at rates that are greater than ever before. However, success for these students, as measured by graduation rates, has not increased with greater access. Black and Latino men face greater barriers to their success than do White and Asian men. The ethnic disparity seen in graduation rates extends to gender…

The purpose of this IPA study was to understand how first-time, first-year traditional-aged residential students made sense of the transition experience at a small private residential college in the Boston area after participating in a 2-day overnight orientation program. Schlossberg's transition theory served as a theoretical framework for the…