Meta-analytic Structural Equation Modeling (MASEM) is the combination of meta-analysis (MA) and structural equation modeling (SEM). With new MASEM methodologies developed over the past few years, there is an opportunity to compare the past approaches with the new ones. The purpose of this dissertation is two-fold. First, the parameter estimates,…

As both universities and students demonstrate an increasing interest in offering and taking online courses, a better understanding of the causes of student outcomes, such as student achievement has become increasingly important. Exploring the causes of varying rates of student success in online courses of higher education is an ongoing challenge…

According to the few quasi-experimental studies examining course outcomes for community college (Xu & Jaggars, 2011a, 2011b, 2013, 2014) and for-profit students (Bettinger, Fox, Loeb, & Taylor, 2014), there is a significant penalty for online students. No comparable research has been conducted on public four-year university students to…

College persistence and completion rates for students from families earning low incomes are consistently lower than for students from wealthy families. Some of these inequitable gaps may be associated with students' perceptions of fit and belonging at higher education institutions dominated by upper-middle-class systems and norms. This…

Researchers, institutional leaders, government policy makers, and leading foundations note the significant role an educated Latina/o population plays in the nation, future workforce, and democracy. This longitudinal study examines the experiences in U.S. colleges and universities that prepare Latina/o students for participation in American…

Lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) college students are among the most vulnerable to suicidal ideation and behaviors when compared to both heterosexual college students and other, generally older, members of the LGB community (Oswalt & Wyatt, 2011). Joiner's (2005) interpersonal psychological theory of suicide seems to be a possible framework…

Even though the United States includes college readiness as a national policy priority, little is known about the factors and experiences that determine positive outcomes in mathematics using online instruction for historically underrepresented minorities at 4-year colleges and universities. The purpose of this quantitative ex-post facto study was…

The primary purpose of this study was to collect evidence on the construct validity of grit using convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity principles. To accomplish this purpose and extend previous research on grit, college students from two schools completed an instrument comprised of a cognitive ability test, and a questionnaire. The…

This study sought to determine the strength and nature of the relationships between social, academic, and financial support and the intent of military students to persist in higher education at a large private non-profit university. The study also collected data from nonmilitary students to note contrasting relationships and looked at overall…

The current study investigated college students' content knowledge and cognitive abilities as factors associated with their algebra performance, and examined how combinations of content knowledge and cognitive abilities related to their algebra performance. Specifically, the investigation examined the content knowledge factors of computational…

Study abroad has been a part of the curricular and co-curricular programming of higher education since 1875. Yet, despite the long history, a literature search revealed that study abroad is the least examined of the high impact practices (HIPs) related to engagement theory. Further, despite its promise as a retention strategy, study abroad has…

The experience of discrimination is a complex phenomenon. At present, there are few studies that have captured the experience of discrimination on a predominately white university campus. This study was designed to investigate the association between perceived discrimination and self-reported health outcomes among university students in Southwest…

Relationship quality has been determined to be a positive factor in the treatment of depression (Brown, 2000; Fagan, 2009). Although the importance of marriage has been broadly studied, little research has investigated correlations among relationship quality, depressive moods, and attachment styles. Although the prevalence of depressive moods has…

This investigation used an experimental design to examine how a visual imagery intervention and two levels of challenge would affect the flow experiences and performance of cadets engaged in Army ROTC marksmanship training. I employed MANCOVA analyses, with gender and prior marksmanship training experience as covariates, to assess cadets' (n =…

Higher education in the United States is replete with inventories and instruments designed to help administrators to identify students who are more likely to succeed in college and to tailor the higher education experience to foster this success. One area of research involves the Holland vocational personality type (Holland 1973, 1985, 1997)…