This qualitative study examines the lived experiences of both first-generation (FG) students and employees of an Upward Bound (UB) program. The purpose of this study is to explore how an UB program at a private university in the Midwest can aid in bridging the educational gap for FG students while faced with obstacles such as reaching, engaging,…

Private higher educational institutions are at a high risk of cyber-attacks based on the amount of data they consume about students, their families, donors, faculty, and employees. I determined that there was a gap in the body of knowledge concerning how IT leaders in private higher education secure their information assets. The purpose of this…

A large body of research literature has explored socio-scientific issues (SSIs) in science teaching and learning, documenting the impact of epistemic beliefs on epistemic emotion, which influences student's reactions to complex scientific topics. Often, students' reactions reflect scientific misconceptions, the correction of which may result in…

Purpose: This study investigates the distribution, integration and practices of university accelerators in higher education institutions of a developing country. Next, this study proposes a pedagogic mode that combines theoretical and experiential learning to enhance higher education institutions' ability to co-create and deliver an…

Given its ongoing struggles at attaining demographic diversity and its key role in nations' economies, the engineering workforce receives considerable attention from researchers and policymakers. Yet, prior studies and STEM recruitment initiatives have often underemphasized the variety among available engineering jobs and careers. It therefore…

The purpose of this study was to examine the perceptions and beliefs of selected faculty members about parental involvement during students' academic experiences at a private, baccalaureate college. The study asked a single research question, "How do faculty members experience and understand parental involvement in their students' academic…

Situation awareness (SA) is linked with actionable decision-making and clinical judgment in nursing practice. The cognitive processes used in developing SA, outlined in Endsley's (1995) model, is the framework underpinning this study and are interwoven into the National Council of State Boards of Nursing Clinical Judgment Measurement Model…

This study was conducted to find the relationship of test-anxiety, emotional intelligence and academic performance of public private sector university students. A sample of 388 students, 194 male and 194 females was drawn through convenient sampling from the Public and Private universities of Karachi in Pakistan, using a cross sectional design.…

Higher education institutions are facing a challenging operating environment as enrollment declines pressure revenue, inflation pressures budgets, endowment earnings remain volatile, and concerns that fewer Americans see the value of post-secondary education threaten institutions' financial viability. Policymakers and Boards rely on financial…

The purpose of this qualitative study was to understand how ten student veterans persist after entering private, 4-year institutions of higher education during or following their military service. The study's conceptual framework, drawing from Vacchi's Model of Student Veteran Support (2011, 2013), employs a narrative approach to spotlight the…

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to explore how graduate students describe self-care deficits and to understand how self-care deficits contribute to burnout, exhaustion, and stress at a private university in the Southeast. During semi-structured interviews and post-interview reflections, ten graduate students from private…

Spirituality is associated with a variety of positive life outcomes, and the university experience has long been regarded as a critical period of spiritual identity development. A key explanation for why gender differences exist in the importance of integrating spirituality in one's life may be that civic engagement is intervening in the…

Is the ideal of a one-size-fits-all university model--where universities are capable of successfully performing all competencies simultaneously--ever achievable? Has the balance between teaching and research activities grown even more fragile or is such a balance unfeasible? In this paper, we review studies of institutional diversity in higher…

American universities rely on donations from alumni to balance their budgets, yet alumni giving rates and amounts have been in persistent decline despite consistently increasing numbers of college graduates. This study asked: how strongly do new alumni identify with their alma mater and the alumni role, how much do they understand about alumni…

This dissertation examines the post-college career choices of no-loan program alumni at Harvard College. Using a conceptual framework informed by elements of social cognitive career theory (Lent et al., 1994) and Perna's (2006) model of college choice, it identifies "what" careers alumni chose after college and "how" and…