Inclusion of students with disabilities in the general classroom has many benefits for all students in the classroom, not just students with disabilities. Including students teaches all students kindness, compassion, and patience. For special education students, inclusion increases confidence, social skills, helps to create a sense of belonging,…

Classrooms on college campuses reflect the heteronormative assumptions of society which leaves queer students to navigate learning in a mostly heterosexual and cisgender world. This can influence students' ability to see themselves reflected in course content and it can negatively impact interactions with faculty and peers. Despite research in…

The neurodiversity model of disability is a relatively new approach to teaching and working with autistic individuals. As a result, many interventions align with earlier models of disability, such as the medical and social models, and aim to assimilate autistic individuals among their neurotypical peers rather than celebrate their differences as…

The retention of female students in engineering technology programs is a concern for midwestern university focusing to foster diversity in engineering and technology fields. This abstract explores the influence of female students' sense of belonging on their retention in engineering technology degree programs. Drawing upon a review of literature…

Incivility in the college classroom distracts from the learning process. Students who are uncivil to their peers often shame and embarrass them in front of others, and uncivil students distract from learning opportunities by arguing with professors and coercing them for grades that were not earned. Incivility by students is counterintuitive to the…

Students are transferring from community colleges to four-year institutions in increasing numbers, yet transfers are persisting and graduating from four-year institutions at lower levels than students who had begun at the institution. Research suggests that transfer students feel less connected to a four-year institution, and fostering transfer…

In higher education, sense of belonging has been linked to improved outcomes such as retention and academic achievement (e,g., Pittman & Richmond, 2007). Previous research has also identified participation in learning communities and campus residency as interventions which improve sense of belonging for students in this context (e.g., Solanki…

Using data from a statewide couple relationship education (CRE) program efficacy study, this implementation science study considered whether and how classmates influence gains from CRE exposure. We pursued a theoretically and empirically supported model to explore whether class climate, indicated by classmate characteristics, influenced change in…

This study sought to discover how well domestic students understand the value of international students on an internationalized campus. The study used qualitative narrative inquiry to investigate stories from domestic students who interact significantly with international students on their campus. The data was collected through semi-structured…

Increased attention is being paid to the role that engagement with scientific practices plays in undergraduate biology education. Particularly important, and understudied, are social aspects of scientific practice (i.e. collaboration, communication, and critique). Social aspects of scientific practice are critical to both the success of practicing…

Student perceptions of community and connectedness have long been a focal point for retention researchers and have been proven to be a determining factor in students' dropout decisions. While these feelings of community exist in the traditional campus structure, it remains to be seen if an online learning environment can elicit those same feelings…

The purpose of this study is to understand how and in what capacity elementary students construct positive math identities in order to inform math curriculum and math pedagogy to help students form positive math identities in the classroom environment. Specifically, this study focused on a set of elementary math students and teachers at a suburban…

In order to comfortably and effectively function in U.S. classrooms, both international students and domestic students benefit from the development of interactive and intercultural communication skills. At Purdue University, a large, public, R1 institution with a substantial international population, the internationalization of the student body is…

Given the inherently social context of classrooms, students' beliefs are dependent on the beliefs of their classmates, particularly their classroom friends and popular peers (Ryan & Shin, 2018). I investigated the ways in which students observe and interpret teaching practices in a context of their peers with three studies with the following…

The primary purpose of this study was to examine the subjective experiences of postsecondary learners with a nonvisible disability. Although the construct of disability has garnered much scholarly attention, there exists a gap in the literature as it relates to qualitative inquiry of disability stigma, ableism, and learners' perceptions of…