Academic failure is commonplace in higher education. Some students persist and go on to complete their courses. However, some do not, and this can create problems for themselves and the institutions in which they are enrolled. If we could understand students' lived experiences of academic failure and persistence, it may be possible to design…

A series of workshops offered to biology and health sciences students during June and July 2022 was primarily aimed to help students to understand and appreciate the employability benefits of engaging with practical science investigations. Such investigations are designed to help students develop not only practical, numerical and problem-solving…

Use of modeling as a learning strategy in introductory science courses could serve to support the persistence of all students, including those who identify with a traditionally underrepresented ethnic minority (URM). If students find inherent value in working on modeling-type problems then this authentic practice would aid in transforming personal…

Three studies examine a novel pathway by which the perseverance component of the personality trait "grit" might predict college students' behavioral persistence when solving challenging math problems. Specifically, we focus on the intervening role of what we refer to as "math-specific self-perceptions of perseverance," which…

Affect has been identified as one of the important inputs in illuminating the mechanism of cognitive activities in mathematical problem solving (MPS). This study aimed to assess upper primary students' MPS-related affect with a focus on its differences across gender and grade-level among upper primary students. To do so, a simple Likert type scale…

Undergraduate students in an education program, or preservice teachers, are expected to practice and teach productive struggle in mathematics as they prepare for their career. Productive struggle in mathematics requires students to persevere in solving rigorous tasks, despite their frustration in doing so. Therefore, a student's level of…

Success in science and mathematics courses, and later in careers, requires more than disciplinary knowledge and general academic competencies. Students also need proficiency in certain key dispositions and life skills. This article is a systematic review of literature that examines what teachers believe about the non-academic skills necessary for…

Universities have been forced to confront the increasing placement of students into developmental courses and the subsequent lack of success students encounter. In an effort to better understand how students' attitudes and dispositions towards mathematics impact this trend, we explored the differences in nine characteristics between students in…

There are many factors which contribute to college/university retention rates, two of which are a sense of entitlement and a lack of academic coping skills among rising college freshmen. The theoretical foundations of this research is conflict theory in education and social construct theory. This study examines grade inflation and social promotion…

Flipped instruction is not new and the literature is extensive with examples of flipped courses. However, there is a lack of studies with a structured, methodical approach to flipped design, implementation, and evaluation of its effectiveness. An upper division geology course was flipped to allow focus on higher-level concepts, especially…

Educational research undervalues the experiences of people with disabilities, including those with learning disabilities and/or dyslexia, whom we call "insiders." In this study, we examined narratives pertaining to schooling from published memoirs and/or interviews with 30 insiders with learning disabilities or dyslexia. First, we…

This mixed-methods study examines an informal place- and community-based environmental education program implemented for rural, underserved high school students in Costa Rica's bio-culturally diverse Osa Peninsula. Using a community-as-pedagogy framework built on Paulo Freire's concept of a problem-posing education, we investigate how…

Client projects have long been recognized for their value as an experiential learning device and as a way to increase a wide range of skills, including critical thinking and problem solving. The extant literature, however, has not fully explored the relationship among student attitudes, learning outcomes, and project evaluations. Through…

This article reports on a qualitative study that uses a phenomenological approach to investigate the differences between adolescents with high and low career adaptability levels, regarding adaptive strategies and needs. The sample included students categorized as above the 75th percentile and in the bottom 25th percentile according to their scores…

This article concludes a longitudinal study with the broader aim to explore learner development as a long-term, social process. One goal has been to inform the endeavours of improving student engagement, retention, as well as under-representation of certain demographics in computing. Students of two computer science-related study programmes…