This case study explores professional academic advisors' perceived usefulness of a fully implemented academic early alert technology at a four-year, public, flagship university in the Midwest. Academic early alert technology has increasingly become more common at colleges and universities during the past two decades, followed by an increasing…

In this study, I used feminist identity development as a theoretical framework to explore the experiences of 12 college sorority women. Participants shared stories from their college and early life, including the experiences they identified as the most influential to their growth and development. Five main themes of what influenced their feminist…

Gamification and game-based learning have been used in the educational setting as an active learning strategy to increase student engagement. This study investigated the extent of the effect of gamification and game-based learning on student engagement of online Allied Health students in the Cultural and Ethical Influences course at Northwestern…

Sexual assault of women is common on college campuses, but the vast majority of victims do not make a formal report. It is imperative to understand these decisions to help design and implement policies to normalize and encourage reporting. This study aimed to extend science on the thematic reasons for non-reporting by (1) establishing validity for…

After enduring the hostile Trump administration, undocumented students faced the transition into the Biden administration in 2021 with both hope and uncertainty. Online searches show hundreds of articles announcing various policy changes, and even more opinion pieces on who is and is not worthy of legal status and citizenship in the United States.…

This longitudinal study examines the responses of student sat two different institutions to creative exercises related to models of chemical bonding. Questions in the form of creative exercises required students to provide relevant, accurate, and distinct statements about two compounds for which they were provided only the formula and…

Educational games have consistently proved that they are valuable didactic instruments, which can contribute to teaching and learning in an enjoyable background. In organic chemistry courses, considerable effort has been made to encourage the learning of nomenclature, an important topic, often perceived as complex, boring, and unconnected to other…

Current student success measures have been shown to be necessary, but insufficient, often masking the successes of specific student populations by virtue of their 4-year institutional centricity, aggregate calculation, and reflection of hegemonic definitions of student success. For far too long, academics and policymakers have valued what they…

News sharing has become a common user behavior in social networking services (SNS) and has been extensively studied as an emerging community practice. This dissertation presents four studies extending current news sharing knowledge. It also provides promising new directions for future investigation. Study 1: suggests that news sharing is a complex…

While there is high demand for university computer science (CS) courses, students often struggle when learning to program. Prior work has identified that student perceptions of their programming ability may contribute to these challenges. For example, studies show that students often perceive that they do not belong, are not capable of succeeding,…

The current study aimed to uncover how the quality of specific course features within the overall classroom environment leads to impacts in student interactions and student motivation within online classrooms. The impacts of internet self-efficacy were also considered. Past research has shown that the classroom environment is important in its…

This multi-site, embedded case study drew on qualitative data to uncover how Black Student Unions (BSUs) within a large California university system bridged or buffered Black student experiences. The central purpose of this case study was to gain an understanding of the Black students' experiences within the BSU, framing the overarching research…

The role of intrusive advising in the persistence of community college students has not been well-studied even though intrusive advising has been touted as a practice to improve retention in U.S. community colleges. Student retention is important for sustaining community colleges that serve as open admissions institutions because they are…

The study explored the academic journey of Latinas who participated in the Hispanic Mother-Daughter Program (HMDP) and completed a bachelor's degree. The literature highlighted intersecting influencers that contributed to the Latinx academic journey. To account for this multidimensional nature, I utilized a conceptual framework with strengths in…

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began in the United States in early 2020, individuals have been motivated to protect themselves against the risk of the virus by the wearing of masks, social-distancing, and receiving vaccinations. This study utilizes Rogers' (1975) Protection Motivation Theory (PMT) to test motivations of collegiate student-athletes to…