Online graduate degree program offerings are increasing in popularity, and online graduate students need support to acclimate to their degree programs. Online orientations have been effective in undergraduate programs; however, there is limited research on the effectiveness of online orientations in online graduate degree programs. The problem…

Background: Previous research has indicated that placing emphasis on communal goals within the field of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education can yield beneficial learning outcomes. However, there remains a relative dearth of investigation into the factors that contribute to the success of STEM education programs…

Chemistry is often daunting for college students, contributing to high attrition rates in STEM majors. This study explored students' perceptions of the challenges in studying chemistry, including task effort and emotional costs. We examined how these perceptions, along with goal approaches, impact academic performance and retention in general…

Within OECD countries, 20% of university students continue no further than the first year. The objective of this research is to analyse the antecedents of student commitment, so as to design action plans for reducing dropout rates within higher education. Educational engagement, student--university identification and perception of performance were…

An abundance of literature has examined barriers to women's equitable representation in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields, with many studies demonstrating that STEM fields are not perceived to afford communal goals, a key component of women's interest in future careers. Using Goal Congruity Theory as a framework, we tested…

One of the most complicated challenges facing higher education institutions focuses on their ability to recruit and retain quality students. This challenge takes on added significance for small, private liberal arts colleges and universities that receive little to no external funding from state governments. The recruitment and retention of first…

This research investigates the role of reinforcement sensitivity theory (RST) in statistics education among two distinct samples of undergraduate psychology students. In Study 1, 318 students in a third-year statistics course completed self-report measures of RST, anxiety, attitudes, and self-efficacy concerning the study of statistics. In Study…

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study is to explore how African American alumni describe the contributions of African American faculty and peers on goal setting, self-motivation, and ongoing persistence at Predominately White Institutions. Using a qualitative descriptive design, data was gathered through interviews and questionnaires…

This action research study investigated the cognitive factors that impacted students' choice to continue within a high school engineering pathway, and the effect of multiple engineering courses on students' engineering self-efficacy. Participants (N = 87) were students who completed three quantitative surveys throughout the engineering course(s)…

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to explore how nontraditional college students describe the influence of academic integration and commitment for persistence to degree completion at universities in the United States. Tinto's theory of student retention served as the theoretical framework. Two research questions guided data…

Mindset (beliefs about the malleability of intelligence) has been studied in a variety of contexts for decades. Recent research highlights the importance of contextual factors in moderating mindset's impact on student outcomes. The commonly-used original mindset measure is context-general. Recently, a mindset measure that is specific to science…

Students entering into US-based higher educational institutions are electing more to take a gap year, loosely defined as a 6-12-month student-directed experience to pursue personally relevant interests, rather than traditionally matriculate into their institution after high school (Simpson, 2004; White, 2009; O'Shea, 2014; GYA, 2023a). However,…

The latest edition of "Mindsets in the Classroom" provides educators with ideas and strategies to build a growth mindset school culture, wherein students are challenged to change their thinking about their abilities and potential through resilience, perseverance, and a variety of strategies. This updated edition contains content from the…

A critical area of debate in an era of evolving university support systems is how best to offer support to students in challenging disciplines. This study examines the effectiveness of current frameworks in addressing the needs of engineering students. This research employs a mixed-methods approach to identify the experiences of final-year…

There is no doubt that connections with other people motivate behavior; yet science is stereotyped as being lonely work devoid of communal connections. Drawing from self-regulation of motivation and goal congruity theories, we ask, does relationship-building in science foster communal perceptions that then increase women's persistence in and…