When the world experienced the COVID-19 pandemic, it required the radical alteration of many facets of life. Educational institutions were no exception. All educational institutions had to discover and implement ways to provide education to their students even though their students could not see each other's faces, stayed six feet apart, and had…

Given the importance of academic motivation for student retention and persistence and that most undergraduate students participate in paid employment, this study investigated first-year undergraduate student employment and its relationship with academic motivation. Specifically, this study used the Wabash National Study of Liberal Arts Education…

The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine formative first-year practices and motivating factors that encouraged first-year college students to pursue peer mentorship roles. The examination of peer mentorship within undergraduate populations owes much to Jacobi's (1991) study on mentoring and academic success, which more recently has…

This study examined the journeys of first-year undergraduate theological students during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic to figure out what, if anything, aided the students in completing their coursework with passing grades. COVID-19 has impacted organizations and individuals around the world, prompting changes to ensure that things kept…

Research indicates that higher education students with strong Emotional Intelligence skills achieve greater academic and extracurricular success, yet very few universities offer educational programs to develop, support, and sustain Emotional Intelligence (EI). The purpose of this interpretive phenomenological study was to explore the lived…

At a southeastern U.S. university, the low retention of postsecondary, traditional-aged first-year students persisting to second year was a problem, importantly decreasing their ability to graduate and gain a career. The purpose of this study was to determine the factors that have motivated postsecondary traditional-aged, first-year students to…

University success is impacted largely by the successful transition of students in their first year. This study's objective is to identify the motives, expectations and preparedness of first-year accounting students enrolled for an accounting degree at the University Of the Western Cape (UWC) for higher education. Students' motives, expectations…

This study aimed to explore the experiences and perceptions of college freshmen who maintained good academic standing of a GPA 2.0 and higher and used a Health and Wellness Workout Center at least once a week. The study used a qualitative research design, specifically a focus group, to gather in-depth information from participants. Participants…

The COVID-19 pandemic provided an opportunity to better understand the transition from secondary school to higher education regarding students' assessment and written-exam experiences. We used mixed methods to investigate students' experiences of first-year university physics exams and cancelled secondary school exams, regarding their motivational…

This article builds on research, previously published in this journal, which tracked student outcomes in a first year core course in an Australian university over the space of 6 years. That research found that a fundamental shift in educator attitude - away from problematising student disadvantage, to seeing student disadvantage as an…

What drives provincial students in Korea to choose a college in Seoul? What role does English language learning play in their choices? This study focuses on two young academic migrants to Seoul, Joon and Lynn, to explore how macrocultural phenomena shaped their psychology and contributed to their language education. Previous studies have focused…

The flipped classroom is proposed as an answer to challenges in higher education. However, studies that explore its influence on first-year student motivation are largely lacking. Using the self-determination theory, this study examines the influence of "large-scale flipped lectures," here called 'expert labs', on first-year student…

The purpose of this interpretative phenomenological analysis was to understand how first-generation college students have experienced involvement in college during the pandemic at a New England University. Astin's (1999) theory of student involvement served as the theoretical framework for the study as it focuses on the interconnected relationship…

Research on student transition into Higher Education (HE) has taken different theoretical perspectives. First, studies investigated personal variables such as students' self-efficacy, emotions and motivation regarding the transition from school to HE. A second strand of research focused on contextual variables, for instance college effectiveness…

This study was conducted to explore the effects of an augmented-reality (AR) creative project on English L2 learners' perceptions of creativity, as well as to investigate how to stimulate students' learning motivation. The AR project was developed and integrated into the course syllabus of a university English class, and 39 Taiwanese freshmen…