The National Center for Educational Statistics (US Department of Education, 2016) reports enrollment in Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) has increased 36 percent since 1990, with the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPED) reporting 355,058 students enrolled in HBCUs compared to 260,381 in 1990. The growth of…

Developmental systems theory and life span development describe the role of individual--context interactions in individual development but have not directly addressed how individuals pursue achievement goals in institutional contexts. We developed a theory informed by these perspectives that explains how institutional contexts affect emerging…

This research aimed to investigate the impact of high-level teacher questioning on 6th grade students' science achievement, retention of learning and their attitudes toward science. A quasi-experimental pretest-posttest control group design was employed in this research. Participants consisted of 43 students enrolled in two intact 6th grade…

The need to increase the number of African American women who obtain STEM degrees has been well documented in the literature by researchers, scientists, and policymakers. Increasing the participation of this group of women and other underrepresented groups in STEM is both an issue of social justice and economic advancement on a national scale.…

In the United States, beginning teacher retention rates are extraordinarily low; only 50% of teachers remain in the classroom after five years. In particular, the state of Arizona has been recruiting significant numbers of teachers from out of state and attempting to retain them with minimal success. This persistent problem has led the neediest of…

Student retention is a key outcome measure for post-secondary education, but data show relatively stagnant retention rates over the past decade. Longstanding interventions such as counseling, academic advising, and mentoring provide crucial student services, but little change in retention rates suggest there is still need for additional student…

Student retention and persistence is increasingly prioritized by state and local policies as well as national scorecards and rankings--however, the policies that politicians and administrators undertake to improve university metrics tend to ignore the realities faced by students at the heart of our institutions. Drawing on a survey/interview…

This study aims to evaluate the roles of social-emotional development, academic grit and subjective well-being in reading-writing motivation. Altogether 582 fourth-grade primary school students were sampled and invited to complete four different scales. The findings are: (1) Social-emotional development is correlated with reading-writing…

Examining the role of inclusion assistants as part of a redesigned residential life curriculum at a Predominantly White Institution (PWI) in the Midwest served as the impetus for this qualitative case study. The inclusion assistants program was designed to increase the support provided to students with underrepresented identities (e.g., students…

This article applies the framework of possible selves to the motivation and persistence behaviours of one group of university students. We draw on possible selves to consider how particular goal-focused actions and life experiences may significantly shape movements towards imagined futures. Utilising a narrative approach from longitudinal data,…

Government response to the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring of 2020 came as a wave of physical closures requiring sudden change in the method of instruction from face-to-face to a completely online. Assessment of student's adaptation to this change during emergency lockdown is the focus of this study. Students' test scores related to perception of…

This paper presents a qualitative research which implements the Delphi method on a sample size of 25 preschool teachers and their assistants in Slovenian preschools regarding their beliefs on self-regulated learning in the preschool. The goal was to determine how preschool teachers and their assistants define their own self-regulated learning,…

The purpose of this study is to explore whether training job seekers in the positive psychological resource of psychological capital (PsyCap) facilitates their job search activities and outcomes. Adopting a quasi-experimental design, we examined the impact of the PsyCap training on job seekers success. Our findings demonstrated that those who…

In the Fall of 2016, we created an integrated introductory biology/chemistry course for first-semester students at Wellesley College. This course was designed to meaningfully integrate chemistry and molecular cell biology while also building community and fostering mentorship both inside and outside the classroom. Here, we describe the assessment…

Recent reform efforts state the importance of providing students with opportunities to persevere with challenging mathematics to make meaning. We posit translanguaging practice as a vital option by which Latinx bilingual students can sustain collective perseverance during problem solving. In this paper, we employ a constant-comparative overlay…