This mixed methods research study examined the reading motivation and retrieval practice ability of U. S. undergraduates aged 18 to 23, as well as the correlations between the two variables, with a focus on gender, year as an undergraduate, and race/ethnicity. A random national sample of 90 undergraduates and an additional minority sample of 17…

By 2023, gamification was entering just about every sector and industry including education, fitness, crowd sourcing, social media, and corporate environments. Gamification often offers promises of motivation, engagement, fun, and even higher performance. At the time of the study, there were few studies that examined gamification in accounting…

It is essential that all students who are interested in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) have the motivational supports to persist in their STEM career trajectories. "STEM role models," or successful individuals in STEM, can be powerful tools to motivate college students towards STEM careers, particularly if students…

In this dissertation study, I aimed to 1) investigate gender patterns in students' career aspirations, in both STEM and non-STEM fields, and 2) identify factors contributing to persistent gender differences within specific STEM disciplines. Drawing on Gottfredson's (1983) model of circumscription and compromise, I examined gender patterns and…

Mississippi middle schools frequently fail to improve the intellectual capacity of students who struggle in mathematics. The purpose of this quantitative causal-comparative non-experimental research design was to investigate the impact of math academic interventions on rural Mississippi middle school mathematics students in grades six through…

The objective of this dissertation was to explore the impact of gender, maternal parenting style, and social class on the level of motivation in first-year college students. Existing research has shown that, individually, these three variables can influence motivation in students. However, we do not know how a mothers' parenting style paired with…

This quantitative study aimed to investigate the influence of teacher personality on teacher-student relatedness, student intrinsic motivation, and academic performance. The pressing need to understand the factors influencing educational outcomes driving this study arises from the desire to enhance teaching effectiveness and student success. By…

This survey study, N = 44 university students, from an urban campus, measured post-pandemic digital divide perceptions, focusing on motivational, physical, skills, and usage access to ICTs through the lens of van Dijk's resources and appropriation theory. Statistical tests, including one-sample t-tests, correlation analyses, one-way and repeated…

First-generation college students (i.e., those whose parents do not hold a bachelor's degree or higher), enter college without the same resources, skills, and knowledge as their non-first-generation counterparts which may lead to disadvantage regarding their chosen field of study in college (Prospero and Vohra-Gupta 2007; Roksa and Levey 2010;…

The purpose of this explanatory sequential, mixed methods study was to examine MBA students' perceptions and motivations for plagiarism to identify plagiarism risk factors at a northeastern research university (NERU). Given the current state of academic dishonesty, there was a need to understand what factors may lead to plagiarism. The problem was…

What motivates students to achieve is a question that educators, parents, and policy makers in every country seek to answer. A scientific understanding of this question can help us design interventions that foster student achievement and unleash the potential of all members of society, regardless of their economic, racial/ethnic, and cultural…

The current study examined hindering factors of 2-year community college students' vertical transfer to 4-year colleges. Rational choice theory guided the study and provided the scope of the problem, which is community college students' apprehension about vertically transferring to 4-year colleges. A quantitative Likert-scale survey, which…

Writing motivation has been deemed a critical aspect of the writing process because motivation affects how students engage with the writing process, how much effort and time they exert in the tasks, and the quality of their written products (Graham, 2018). Writing motivation has been the focus of recent studies on how to improve the discouraging…

This study investigated the impact of training in self-regulated learning on community college, geoscience students' achievement, metacognition, time management, and science motivation scales. The study also investigated the impact of SRL training on these outcomes as a function of gender and ethnicity. During the Fall of 2022, 70 community…

For many years, there have been discrepancies between masculine and feminine populations in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. The problem was the gender disparity in middle and high school STEM classrooms, in which teachers often lack an understanding of the underlying reasons and measures needed to lessen the gender…