This qualitative case study used the Technology Acceptance Model as a framework to guide this study of the social media practices of thirteen Community Colleges within the Central Region of California. The problem addressed by this study was that the California Community Colleges are not meeting the goals of Chancellor's Vision for Success to be…

CalFresh benefits can help college students make ends meet while attending college, but not all eligible students apply. One contributing factor may be that students are not aware they are eligible. Therefore, outreach efforts informing them of their eligibility could help increase take-up rates. To test this, we designed and conducted two…

Task-based research has investigated the learning opportunities (e.g. language related episodes) that emerge during heritage and second language learner interactions during writing tasks. However, to date, it is unknown how these peer interactions involving heritage language learners contribute to written texts. Further, given the rise of social…

Office hours are one of the most common support mechanisms found in courses. Despite the prevalence of office hours in life sciences classes, there has been little investigation of how science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) students perceive office hours, particularly at non--research intensive universities or other institutions where a…

Objective: We aimed to explore conversations about mental health difficulties by Reddit users who posted within college subreddits during the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants: Data were collected from the subreddits of 22 California campuses, representing 113,579 anonymous members. Using the following search terms, we retrieved 577 posts (i.e., 268…

This mixed-methods dissertation examines the experiences of academic counselors in the California community college (CCC) system who have provided distance/online counseling. As online education increases and is seen as a way to provide access to higher education at a lower cost to institutions, the need for online support services such as…

Investigating task-based synchronous computer-mediated communication (SCMC) interaction has increasingly received scholarly attention. However, studies have focused on negotiation of meaning and the quantity, focus and resolution of language related episodes (LREs). This study aims to broaden our understanding of the role of audio, video, and text…

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, many instructors were forced to adjust from in-person to emergency remote teaching; however, classroom observation protocols, like the Classroom Observation Protocol for Undergraduate STEM (COPUS), have only been developed and validated for in-person instruction. Therefore, we developed and validated an…

Distance ed and information technology (IT) have had to teamed up to boost Wi-Fi on campus and provide students with face-to-face tutoring due to COVID-19. While the relationship between IT and distance-learning staff is often necessity-driven, changes wrought by the coronavirus resulted in more of a "hand-and-glove" approach, where most…

The purpose of this mixed methods research study was to explore the practice of academic advising and the challenges associated with virtual advising in California higher education during the COVID-19 pandemic. Advising is a retention practice recognized as critical to student success because advisors are one of few personnel interactions students…

Research indicates that when instructors interact with students online their academic engagement increases, yet there is little research on student peer interactions and its effectiveness in terms of academic engagement. This study evaluates peer deliberations on a collaborative website for students enrolled in an American politics course at two…

The purpose of this exploratory qualitative study was to discover how a single, relational intervention in a digital space focused on civil, respectful conversation across difference might influence digital media literacy (DML) among college students, with the goal of increasing college students' sense of belonging and level of curiosity. The…

Learning analytics has emerged from a confluence of factors including expanding volumes of student data generated from learning management systems and student information systems, advanced technologies for retrieving and analyzing that data, and a desire of higher education institutions to understand more about student behavior, teaching and…

My first year as a tenure-track professor has been nothing short of a jaw-dropping experience. From navigating the social and political environment with colleagues and administrators, to building meaningful relationships with pre-service teachers, the COVID-19 pandemic and all its attendant challenges prompted me to examine common institutional…

According to the American Association of University Professors and the "Chronicle of Higher Education," instances of targeted faculty harassment are rising. I therefore begin this article by discussing how I ended up on the receiving end of a sweeping harassment campaign because of my critical scholarship on environmental and social…