Many community colleges do not have a formal process in place to offer or support a structured gap year option for students who recently graduated from high school, thereby denying those students an educational option that has been recognized as beneficial to many learners. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore factors that…

International education opportunities are vital to students' personal, professional, and educational development. Pre-COVID era research has found that students seek to participate in international education to learn about other cultures, enhance career development, gain world enlightenment, attain personal growth, or for leisure. However, minimal…

Double degrees have been identified in universities around the globe. The Colombian double degree is a local hybrid of the American double major and the local profession-enabling "pregrado" that universities, particularly elite private ones, marketize in a context of mass higher education, devaluation of first university degrees and a…

This research aimed to reveal the decisions of master's students about whether to pursue their doctoral degree or not and the factors affecting these decisions. The participants of this research, in which the basic qualitative research design was used, consisted of 28 students (19 female and 9 male) in different parts of the educational sciences…

In this article, we introduce the four component model (FCM), which describes both the internal processes that play distinct roles in the production of moral behavior and their associated sets of relevant, teachable skills. We use this model as an analytic framework to examine college students' moral character experiences reported in the Wabash…

In this report, AIR shares an exploratory analysis of how the past and present experiences of adult learners of color shape their perceptions of college and decisions they make. Existing research highlights some common motivations, strengths, and barriers for adult learners (see, e.g., Patterson, 2018); however, it does not deeply explore the full…

The impacts of COVID-19 on Study abroad (SA) are deep and widespread and potentially affect the factors that guide US undergraduate students' choices as they relate to SA. To investigate them, the present study relies on the MSA (Motivation to SA questionnaire: Anderson & Lawton, 2015) and adds two new groups of factors: language learning and…

National efforts have been made to increase STEM participation among racially marginalized individuals (Ro & Loya, 2015). However, women, especially African American women, remain underrepresented in STEM fields, particularly in engineering and computer science disciplines. The purpose of this basic interpretive qualitative study was to…

The decline in foreign language learners in tertiary education is a concern in many countries. While factors influencing students' persistence in second language learning have been explored, there has been limited discussion on the potential of language programmes that develop students' self-formation alongside language learning. This study aimed…

Given the criticism of the institutional practices of Japan's higher education institutions on international students' learning experiences, the study attempts to investigate why international students still chose to study at Japanese universities and whether they benefited from this experience. It also explores whether they benefit from this…

In this study, I sought to discover factors that contributed to candidate success in gaining admission to the San Jose State University Clinical Laboratory Scientist (CLS) Training Program. Social Cognitive Career Theory suggests that the interplay between an individual's personal characteristics and life experiences lead to self-efficacy…

Today's youth face multifaceted challenges in a time when society is more aware of the consequences of unhealthy decision-making. In this study, we tested the effectiveness of an emerging intervention, GPS for SUCCESS, a classroom-based 5-week program that helps students build their purpose in life while securing a commitment to achieve it. We…

Despite China's recent remarkable performance in high-quality research, the number of students going abroad to pursue doctoral degrees in STEM fields has been rising rapidly. This study investigates the motivations of Chinese international doctoral students (CIDS) in STEM fields for undertaking a PhD abroad, and the external factors influencing…

This contribution explores motivational factors from the perspective of students in order to design an effective approach to teaching. Its purpose is twofold. First, it pinpoints findings from a student needs analysis regarding their learning in relation to today's teaching reality. Second, the findings serve as the basis for proposing a…

The purpose of this study was to understand the factors leading to college students' spiritual development at a secular institution. I examined student perceptions to determine the factors that facilitated their individual personal growth. A Grounded Theory approach was used because I sought to explain how students use their social, relational,…