Online graduate degree program offerings are increasing in popularity, and online graduate students need support to acclimate to their degree programs. Online orientations have been effective in undergraduate programs; however, there is limited research on the effectiveness of online orientations in online graduate degree programs. The problem…

Anchored in intersectionality theory and minority stress theory, this study examined campus climate and sense of belonging for 77,997 undergraduates at 49 North American higher education institutions. This study was guided by three research questions: (Q1) What is the relationship between undergraduate students' sense of belonging outcomes and…

The aim of this study was to investigate the extent to which life purpose explained the variance in college students' levels of resilience and persistence amidst COVID-19 pandemic. This study utilized a cross-sectional design and focused upon the three dimensions of life purpose: awareness of purpose, awakening to purpose, altruistic purpose.…

The purpose of this qualitative transcendental phenomenological study was to explore how African American male graduates experience and understand academic goal commitment and grit regarding college education in a small Southeastern regional North Carolina district. Duckworth's grit theory was the framework used to explore the learning problems…

Individual differences are important predictors of academic success. A sense of purpose in life is gaining increasing attention as a key individual difference factor to foster in university students. The current study examined whether a sense of purpose in life, a dispositional tendency to pursue goals and activities in line with one's overarching…

There is not a strong academic foundation in the literature on relationships between knowledge-seeking behavior, and grit, and ambition, in high school seniors and college students. This quantitative correlational study utilized ex post facto data to explore the relationship between two independent variables, grit and ambition, and a dependent…

Feedback is a key factor in helping individuals to self-regulate their learning behavior. Informative feedback, as a very basic form of feedback informing learners about the correctness of their answers, can be framed in different ways emphasizing either what was correct or what must be improved. The regulatory focus theory describes different…

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study is to explore how college students from the United States describe the motivational factors that influence them to seek a degree in computer science. There is a gap in the research that shows a need to look at the motivations of women from their first experiences in computer science to begin and…

Chemistry is often daunting for college students, contributing to high attrition rates in STEM majors. This study explored students' perceptions of the challenges in studying chemistry, including task effort and emotional costs. We examined how these perceptions, along with goal approaches, impact academic performance and retention in general…

The problem that was addressed through this study is that online undergraduate adult students, 25 years of age or older, do not persist to graduation at Caring University, a pseudonym for an online university. The purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate the perceptions of online adult undergraduate alumni about what motivated them to…

This study analyzes the reasons for stop out behavior in a first-year composition class. The study was intended to be mixed methods, but the quantitative data, which was to be collected via survey, yielded too low of an n-value to allow for statistical analysis; therefore, case study research, analyzed through a social context framework, was…

Although an increasing number of Latinx students are enrolling in higher education, only a small percentage graduate from two and four-year universities compared to their counterparts. This study explored the relationship between demographic variables and grit scores among undergraduate students. Grit, defined as the perseverance and passion for…

Within OECD countries, 20% of university students continue no further than the first year. The objective of this research is to analyse the antecedents of student commitment, so as to design action plans for reducing dropout rates within higher education. Educational engagement, student--university identification and perception of performance were…

An abundance of literature has examined barriers to women's equitable representation in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields, with many studies demonstrating that STEM fields are not perceived to afford communal goals, a key component of women's interest in future careers. Using Goal Congruity Theory as a framework, we tested…

Background: Increasingly colleges and universities are utilizing Outdoor Orientation Programs (OOPs) to help incoming students assimilate into college life. These programs have shown promise in recent analyses for enhancing desired outcomes with particular consideration shown to pro-social behavior and retention outcomes. Purpose: To examine how…