Little is known about the experience of belonging for full-time, hybrid physical therapy faculty in the United States. Rapid growth of Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) education programs with hybrid curricular models and national physical therapy faculty shortages suggest the importance of exploring faculty belonging, especially given the…

Higher education institutions in the United States continue to explore ways in which they can improve student outcomes and continue the dissemination of knowledge while concurrently managing increased budget pressures, enrolment challenges, evolving stakeholder demands, shifts in technology, and wider societal headwinds. One option which they have…

Underrepresented female doctoral students (UFDS) face challenges in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education, particularly concerning a low sense of belonging (SoB). Little is known about the impact of learning settings (online or on-campus) and the inclusive leadership qualities of research supervisors on the SoB of…

Universities have increased the number of fully or partially online courses they offer to meet students' family, work-life, and academic needs. As a result of this shift, the HyFlex learning paradigm, which provides hybrid and flexible learning options, has gained traction in academia in recent years. The COVID-19 pandemic has altered the…

Cohorts have a positive influence on doctoral students, providing support and contributing to student success. Many of these benefits are attributed to the sense of community a cohort develops. Despite the importance of a sense of community in doctoral cohorts, few studies have addressed how it develops. The purpose of this study was to examine,…

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive single case study was to understand how college instructors across a variety of discipline areas described the development of their instructional strategies to embed sense of community and cognitive presence in a blended class environment at a university in the Midwest United States. The Community of…

The COVID-19 pandemic substantially disrupted normal operations at liberal arts colleges (LACs) across the United States, as well as the lives and educational trajectories of their undergraduate students. This dissertation collected data from 775 undergraduate LAC students enrolled in two colleges in the U.S. South during the spring 2021 semester…

Quantitative data was collected from 926 traditional-aged postsecondary students, of which most (69%) respondents were upperclassmen in their junior or senior year of college. The findings from this overall research indicate that there has been a shift in how today's Generation Z learners view online and hybrid learning and their ideal way to take…

This is a phenomenological case study of teachers at an independent high school in New England during the COVID era. It includes analysis of their recollections of their experiences during the emergency remote shutdown in 2020, and also of their experiences during the 2020-2021 school year, in which they worked under a difficult and complicated…

The problem that was the focus of this qualitative case study was the lack of identification of college students' perceptions how participation in community of inquiry (CoI) influenced self-efficacy, motivation, and student relationships in developmental blended courses during the COVID-19 pandemic. The purpose of this qualitative case study was…

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effects of incorporating feedback from learner engagement and learner satisfaction into the instructional design of online and hybrid courses at the community college level. Kolb's Experiential Learning Theory and experiential learning cycle provided the theoretical framework. This mixed methodology…

Despite the continued growth of K-12 online learning, there remains a need for additional research addressing roles of online facilitators and how they can improve the sense of community at K-12 online schools. The first article of this dissertation presents a case study illustrating how online facilitators can provide the same level of support…