This study illuminates the rich and unique experiences of alumni who successfully completed a Doctor of Education (Ed.D.). During two open-ended interview sessions, eight participants revealed the barriers they encountered and successfully navigated to complete their doctoral programs. Some findings align with previously known barriers from extant…

The International Baccalaureate (IB) curriculum provides students with ample academically demanding learning experiences at the elementary, middle, and high school levels. A full continuum of IB offerings from 3-years-old to 12th grade at a southern school has not increased the percentage of graduates with IB diplomas as expected. This mixed…

Multiple factors influence a student's success in high school graduation. Individual factors such as disability, racial or ethnic identity, and gender may result in inequity in the school environment, interfering with learning and possibly leading to poorer educational outcomes. This secondary analysis of student educational records (N = 3,782)…

Classroom teaching is a demanding and arduous profession, requiring teachers to have a suitable personality to succeed and persevere. However, academic institutions usually determine acceptance based solely on cognitive test scores, despite research indicating the added value of personality measures. This study presents the MESILA personality…

K-12 schools in Ohio are partially evaluated on their ability to successfully graduate students with their four-year cohort. Educators have been tasked with improving graduation rates. This study examined one urban high school to understand and provide insights to increase its graduation rate. This school recently received a poor score from the…

Higher education has been touted as critical to social mobility, even greater longevity; however, these benefits accrue with degree completion, and many students who begin college never earn a degree. Using the most recent Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), we sought to understand variation in college completion rates and test…

This dissertation is composed of three studies linking general education astronomy to student performance, course-taking, graduation, and identity. The first study examined demographic and academic predictors of astronomy performance among a cohort of N=1,909 community college students enrolled in astronomy courses in a large suburban community…

We examined a select group of R1 and R2 Doctor of Philosophy programs in education, focusing on core courses, research courses, dissertation structures, required credits, program structures, and experiential learning opportunities. A comparative analysis of ten institutions revealed commonalities in dissertation credit requirements but diverges in…

We utilized Schlossberg's transition theory (1984) as the framework for understanding how international students from the Caribbean arrive at the decision to remain within the United States after completing their highest earned degree and joining the diaspora. Using a phenomenological research design with a sample of six international students who…

Students experience challenges with persistence, retention, graduation, and overall academic success in colleges and universities, particularly when courses are taught by adjunct instructors. Using a sample of 21,274 student results in three different general education disciplines from 2010 to 2019, the authors found that there was a disparity…

Higher education institutions face increased pressure from government and external funding sources to retain and graduate their students each year. Nationally, the federal government's IPEDS report defines the standard measure of an institution's retention and graduation success. When universities attempt to adapt this institutional standard to…

In recent years, state and local support for academic acceleration has created opportunities for students with advanced learning needs to move through their education at a pace that matches their abilities and may be faster than their same-age peers. As a result, it is not uncommon for exceptionally bright students to complete their high school…

About one-third of college students drop out before finishing their degree. The majority of those remaining will take longer than 4 years to complete their degree at "4-year" institutions. This problem emphasizes the need to identify students who may benefit from support to encourage timely graduation. Here we empirically develop machine…

Several state boards of education have adopted graduate profiles or portraits to better define the skills and knowledge students should master before they graduate high school. This report discusses the graduate profiles developed by the following states: South Carolina, Utah, Virginia, and Washington. While their entry points and approaches to…

"Reimagining Pastoral Education and Training" is a professional doctoral project born out of a burden of pastor-parish challenges that lead to pastoral dropout. A basic prelude question assesses the perceived problem: "Is there really a declining corps of young pastors leaving the ministry, disrupting their families, and…