This study seeks to examine whether and to what extent general personality traits based on the Big Five model (McCrae & Costa, 2003) and students' adjustment to college as measured by the Student Adaptation to College Questionnaire (Baker & Siryk, 1999) correlate with and explain unique variance of academic achievement and engineering…

Over the past few decades, standards-based educational reforms in the U.S. have sought to enhance students' college and career readiness. The most recent wave of such reforms has emphasized writing as an essential aspect of college readiness and a 21st century skill necessary for success in the workplace. A common feature of these conversations…

Students transfer from one institution of higher education to another for many different reasons, and students' decision-making processes and enrollment patterns can be complex. This, coupled with a declining postsecondary enrollment nationally and the number of high school graduates leveling off, has forced the transfer admission offices to think…

A post-secondary degree is frequently a pathway to career advancement and higher earning potential, and although African American women's college enrollment has increased substantially, their graduation rates have not experienced comparable growth. Prior research demonstrates that social adjustment to college predicts persistence and attrition. It…

Homesickness is a complex phenomenon that operates on a spectrum and impacts individuals' psychological, cognitive, and physical functioning. Sufferers experience a preoccupation of home and a strong desire to return home. In higher education, homesickness among first-year students has been linked to a higher risk of dropping out of school,…

Recent world events and the ever-changing nature of higher education mean that colleges and universities exist in a state of near-constant flux. This qualitative study explored the experiences of seven college seniors who persisted to graduation after beginning their college careers when their university was admitting lower-division students for…

The transition to postsecondary education is characterized by many changes for adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). A data-based understanding of a student's readiness for postsecondary education could help students, and their parents, better prepare for this life transition. The Transition Readiness Scale (TRS) was created to address…

We explored Asian international students' successful learning experiences and adjustment through the lens of self-determination theory. To explore how international students perceive their classroom learning environments and learning experiences in more detail, a sequential explanatory mixed-methods approach was used. In the quantitative phase,…

New first-year students are vulnerable to dropping out of university because the transition into higher education (HE) is difficult to navigate. Using thematic analysis, we analysed focus groups/interview, exit interviews and qualitative survey data with university students during their first year as criminology undergraduates to explore how they…

This essay is a discussion of the lived experiences of first-generation college students each August when they arrive on a college campus for the first time. The author's approach offers a reflective component for institutions of higher education to consider when creating support or programs for first-generation students as they navigate an…

The aim of this study was to develop, with the participation of international students, the content of an online system that these students could use in the process of acculturation and adapting to a new environment. The action research with a participatory design approach was selected as the research model from among the qualitative research…

Objective: The objective of this systematic review was to understand how and why eating behavior changes during the transition to university, and interpret findings from a self-determination theory perspective (Ryan & Deci, 2000). Methods: We searched six databases and identified 51 articles with findings involving changes in eating behavior…

There is a lot of research on pathways students' transition to universities, however, little is known about those students' initial transition to the Academic Pathway Program (APP). This study investigated students' transition to an Academic Pathway Program (APP) offered at a College affiliated to a metropolitan university in Sydney, Australia.…

Previous studies have indicated that mobile social apps have crucial implications for social connectedness among college students, the specific patterns of WeChat usage that facilitate freshmen's college adjustment and academic performance still remain unclear. To fulfil this identified study gap, the current research thoroughly examined the…

Over the course of the previous two decades, successive governments have attempted to attract students from diverse backgrounds as part of an overarching ambition to widen participation in Higher Education (HE). As part of those efforts, there has been a proliferation of Further Education Colleges (FECs) utilised to meet those ends. In 2021,…