For almost 40 years, our university's first year writing program has included a shared outcome: "Students will appreciate the capacity of writing to change oneself and the world." This outcome, unlike our more typical composition goals concerning writing processes, rhetorical acumen, and critical research abilities, had never been…

This qualitative multiple-case study examined the experiences of exploratory students and the support provided by university resources and academic advising throughout their transition and major exploration. Data collection consisted of semi-structured interviews with the five exploratory students who entered the university in the Fall of 2021.…

While women entering medical school are faced with a patriarchal system, they also enter into a community with other women and the potential for "resistance." The purpose of this study is to use the theory of temporal agency to explore how first-year medical students who identify as women draw upon past, future, and present agency to…

Objective: Examine the proportion of students with rapid firearm access and associations with recent alcohol and marijuana use. Participants: Cross-sectional data from college freshmen (n = 183) in 2020 who participated in the "Mason: Health Starts Here" study. Methods: Using logistic regression, associations were examined between past…

This mixed-methods study explored the nature, effectiveness, and policy implications of the fee-charging private supplementary tutoring (PT)--including online--that first-year Kazakhstani university students attended over the last 12 months. The data were collected from 952 participants using a close-ended questionnaire followed by semi-structured…

The purpose of this non-experimental, correlational quantitative study was to compare the graduation rates of first-time, full-time students with disabilities to those of first-time, full-time students in the general population at the participating university. The sample used for analysis was full-time, first-time students entering between 2015…

In identifying ways to create inclusive spaces in the classroom, instructors should not be limited by singular modes of discourse to engage students. Particularly when teaching first-year students who seek to invent the university and claim their intellectual space within it, these considerations must be deeply integrated into the course…

In this article, the authors analyze data accumulated over 10+ years of teaching market interaction using a simple classroom experiment. The experiment is designed to teach first-year undergraduate students the basics of supply and demand and market efficiency. In total, they analyze data from 85 teaching sessions and 243 individual markets. They…

Medical school curriculum integrates pre-clinical coursework with clinical experiences to impart understanding of pathophysiologic processes and requisite skills for future physicians. Evaluation through examinations measures students' knowledge and skills acquisition, while practice exam questions remain underexplored in studies on student study…

Much has been written on the skills and capabilities of a new generation raised with social media, smartphones, and immediate access to data and information via the Internet. Today's college students grew up using the Internet, where they both generate and consume data. But do incoming college students have the skills necessary to thrive in a…

Instrumental variables is a popular approach for causal inference in education when randomization of treatment is not feasible. Using a first-year college program as a running example, this article reviews the five assumptions that must be met to successfully use instrumental variables to estimate a causal effect with observational data: SUTVA,…

The problem investigated in this study was the trend of decreasing student retention of first-year, degree-seeking college students at an independent community college located in northeastern New Mexico. The purpose of the study was to examine the association between student retention and program utilization. The research question was to determine…

This study examines the potential to use non-expert, crowd-sourced raters to score essays by comparing expert raters' and crowd-sourced raters' assessments of writing quality. Expert raters and crowd-sourced raters scored 400 essays using a standardised holistic rubric and comparative judgement (pairwise ratings) scoring techniques, respectively.…

Authentic assessments in higher education typically imply the replication of real-world tasks. Psychological authenticity is the perceived alignment between an individual's internal reference sources (i.e. personal values and beliefs) and their actions. Applying psychological authenticity logic to assessment tasks, we investigated students'…

College completion is an important focus for policy and practice and is impacted by student academic and non-academic factors. Participation in non-classroom activities is well documented to extend positive intellectual, social, and psychosocial outcomes associated with college completion, yet this association is understudied for community college…