This qualitative study reports the university experiences of Quebec students whose parents were born in Latin America. The analysis, which looks at students who have either persisted in school or discontinued their studies, underscores the importance of cultural capital and, especially, an understanding of the student craft for school retention.…

Educational disparities between Indigenous and non-Indigenous youth across Canada, as is true across the United States, pose challenges to education systems to examine and alter professional practices in ways that support closing these gaps. Calls for more Indigenous school psychologists who might bring skills and perspectives to bear are…

Research on of the educational impacts of sexual violence among undergraduate students indicates that sexual violence may affect students' engagement and attitudes towards postsecondary life. The present study addressed this and examined academic and social engagement on campus among female students in Canada who had experienced sexual violence. A…

Despite the importance of obtaining a university degree, retention rates remain a concern for many universities. This longitudinal study provides a multi-domain examination of first-year student characteristics and behaviors that best predict which students graduate. Graduation status was assessed seven years after students entered university.…

This study explored the experiences of former first-year students who had been institutionally dismissed from an undergraduate health program in a large Canadian university. Using a qualitative narrative inquiry, 20 individual interviews were conducted with 10 former students. Challenges connecting with faculty, large classes, and academic…

Few studies have examined the contribution of individual psychological factors to long-term indicators of academic success. This study examines the influence of personality and individual difference factors in relation to retention. In this study, 290 Canadian undergraduate students completed measures of personality, resiliency, perfectionism, and…

This article highlights the challenges, triumphs, and setbacks experienced by a mid-sized, public institution in Eastern Canada that is now more than two years into the SEM process. It shares how a team built a sense of urgency in an institution with historically-low retention rates and developed a variety of strategies and structures to improve…

Graduate student mentoring is a key component of successful university experiences, specifically, improved student retention, completion, and satisfaction. Tensions in application of existing mentoring frameworks create difficulties with university-wide approaches. We used a descriptive qualitative study design to explore graduate students'…

Why are newly admitted students to online programs not registering in courses in the session for which they applied for admission? Two surveys were completed (January 2019 and May 2019) by students who had accepted an offer of admission into an online program at Laurentian University, but had subsequently not registered for courses for the…

In 2014, Canada issued its first International Education Strategy, articulating targets for international enrollment and its economic benefits, but lacking international student retention goals. Universities and colleges used to be places where students could get immigration advice, but past Bill C-35 only Regulated Canadian Immigration…

Academic institutions invest significant sums of money to serve their students and to influence their decisions to stay. This study sheds light on the challenge for academic institutions to allocate their investments to keep students and enhance their retention rates. This study aims to investigate whether or not providing academic services has…

Student-parents compose a significant proportion of the student population at community colleges across the United States and Canada. The conflicting demands they face as they navigate academic, financial, and family responsibilities are considerable. Drawing on interviews with student-parents and administrators at two community colleges, we focus…

This instrumental case study explored some preliminary impacts of a 7-year blended learning initiative (BLI) at a medium sized Canadian university on student learning. Building on the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework, two research questions directed the investigation: (1) What are the preliminary impacts of a BLI on student learning? (2) What…

This study describes policies and practices implemented in 12 high schools (Quebec, Canada) that more or less effectively leveraged extracurricular activities (ECA) to prevent dropout among vulnerable students. Following an explanatory sequential mixed design, three school profiles ("Effective," "Ineffective," and…

Institutions in many jurisdictions are in the process of implementing Open Educational Resources (OER). This short paper is based on a report commissioned by Contact North/Contact Nord as part of their Pockets of Innovation series to better understand the impact of OER implementations at diverse institutions. The investigation looks into 13…