This research explored the impact a 3-day pre-college diversity intervention had on incoming White college students' (N = 63) colour-blind racial attitudes (COBRAS), or their unawareness of racial privilege, blatant racial issues, and institutional discrimination. Repeated measures analysis of variance tests indicated that students reported a…

This study was conducted to understand the experiences of wellness among Latino first-year students at a four-year institution in the Southwest. The Wellness Evaluation of Lifestyle (Meyers, Sweeny, & Witmer, 2001, 2004, 2011) was utilized as an analytical tool to further draw upon interview questions and themes. In hopes to inform a body of…

Academic advisors build relationships with college students and guide them in support of their academic success and retention. Working with first-year students is a particular challenge for advisors because students are more likely to withdraw before continuing to their next year in college. This qualitative case study was designed to understand…

When institutions introduce financial aid policies, researchers have an opportunity to study these policies within the framework of a natural experiment. For this methodological note, I use a natural experiment that occurred at the public university when institutional scholarship for all first-time freshmen meeting a minimum high school grade…

Objective: During the college transition, vulnerability to disordered eating and exercise behaviors and cognitions may increase. We studied how behaviors and cognitions change differentially over time, in the context of gender, athletic participation, and contingencies of self-worth. Participants: 229 diverse, first-year students at a competitive…

In many cases, students are unaware of some parts of their study plans or do not have enough information about utilizing available college resources that may help them through their study years. The purpose of this study was to propose and evaluate a method to improve engineering students' understanding of their study plans and available resources…

Purpose: A novel first-year experience course was developed using culturally responsive teaching strategies at an undergraduate liberal arts college in the southeastern USA to promote health advocacy and to provide students with an overview of male health. The course focuses on the biological, sociocultural, economic and gender influences that…

The learning of calculus concepts is considered challenging for students. This claim is actual for calculus in general and for specific concepts in particular. In this paper, we focus on the concept of the inflection point. We argue that one of the roots of this problem is the lack of a useful and productive meaning of the concept--the…

Objective: Sexual and dating violence (SV/DV) on college campuses is a pervasive problem with far-reaching implications for public health. This paper describes the development and evaluation of a widely disseminated SV/DV primary prevention program, the Red Flag Campaign (RFC). Participants and Methods: An online survey was administered to 203…

This study aims at better understanding of the use of self-assessment to support high-achieving students in first-year university mathematics. The students, who had not previously self-assessed their skills and knowledge in mathematics, were given two self-assessment exercises during a calculus course: they assessed their prior knowledge and…

This study, which adopted an "ex post facto" research design, investigated the relationship between goal orientation and learning readiness among first year students in three public universities in Kenya. A sample size of 372 first years from the three universities were obtained using both stratified and simple random sampling…

The transition from school to university is challenging and a greater knowledge of the first-year student experience will enable staff to better support their students. University- and government-run student surveys fail to capture the depth and breadth of the first-year experience and so qualitative research is needed to get a more nuanced and…

Background: Living-learning communities and global or diversity learning experiences have been identified as educational practices which often have a "high impact" on student success, as well as providing interpersonal competencies that are greatly valued by employers. Even without a specific intercultural or diversity component,…

With the increasing adoption of learning communities, it is imperative to document their effectiveness. Using a large, longitudinal, multi-institutional dataset, we found that linked-learning communities positively impact students' engagement and perceived gains. We also found that the estimated effect of learning communities varies widely across…

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship and predictability of demographic factors, and academic factors on the persistence and progression rates among first-year, full-time, four-year degree seeking students at a Historically Black College and University. Specifically, this study focused on the predictive power of demographic…