Innovative Higher Education最新文献

Student persistence and retention in community colleges concern scholars, policymakers, and academics in higher education at large. Previous literature suggests that a strong sense of belonging in higher education and at the institution the student is attending may be one significant factor that impacts persistence and retention. However, belonging on campus in community college settings is complex given the nature of open enrollment, lack of on-campus housing, employment status of most students, and the limited amount of time students stay at the institution. Furthermore, previous correlational studies linking a sense of belonging and academic outcomes leave scholars wondering about causation without the science to support the inquiries. Standard statistical methods of association do not allow scholars to draw causal conclusions. Direction dependence analysis (DDA) provides a new way of statistically examining the causal directionality of relationships between constructs. The current study introduces principles of direction dependence modeling and examines the causal direction of the relationship between belonging and academic self-efficacy in a large community college setting. DDA results suggest that there is evidence to suggest a causal relationship between belonging and academic self-efficacy, a strong indication that belonging causes academic motivation rather than the other way around. Implications for higher education research and potential limitations of DDA are discussed.

Striving antiracist frontline student affairs educators work from commitments to racial equity and racial justice. Yet, when responding to racist harms, they must navigate institutional investigative practices. In this institutional ethnographic study of a Predominantly and Historically White Institution (PHWI), despite frontline educators’ aims, responses resulted in limited change or adequate support for students harmed by racist incidents. Rather, investigative practices drew on white interpretations, emphasized individual responsibility, and excluded frontline educators from meaningful involvement. The findings of this study suggest that the social organization of who gets to be involved in institutional bias response processes may be racialized in ways that further harm both racially minoritized students and staff. However, the ways the educators in this study recognized the tensions and challenges in their work and actively worked to center students’ needs provide important insights for policies and practices that re-center the knowledge and aims of those at the frontline educators.

Stress levels are high among college students in the United States. Growth mindset and stress-is-enhancing mindset interventions offer ways to reduce stress, but minimal research has examined them. This study’s aim was to examine the effect of mindset interventions on mindsets, stress, academic motivation, and responses to hypothetical academic scenarios. Participants included 210 college students who were randomized to one of four groups: growth mindset (intelligence is malleable), stress mindset (stress is beneficial), synergistic (intelligence is malleable, and stress is beneficial), or control (brain functions). The growth mindset and the synergistic mindset group increased in growth mindset, and the growth mindset group had higher growth mindset than the stress mindset and control group post-intervention. The stress mindset and the synergistic group increased in stress-is-enhancing mindset, and both groups had higher stress-is-enhancing mindsets than the growth mindset and control group post-intervention. All groups decreased in stress and increased in academic motivation. The synergistic group was the only group to improve on all the main outcomes, and students in this group were less likely to want to withdraw from a course in both negative hypothetical academic scenarios (if they failed an assignment or were faced with a professor with a fixed mindset). Our findings suggest that students would benefit from increased access to mindset interventions.

A major focus of innovation in higher education today is to improve faculty teaching, especially their focus on students’ career readiness and acquisition of workplace-relevant communication and teamwork competencies (i.e., transferable skills). Some contend that such instruction is best achieved through hiring faculty with prior work experience in industry, where the “culture” is preferable to academia where practical skills and career guidance are undervalued. However, little research exists on the topic and in this study we draw on person-centered views of culture to conceptualize industry experience as a form of cultural knowledge (i.e., cultural scripts) that can travel with a person (or not) over time and space. Using a mixed methods design where we gathered survey (n = 1,140) and interview (n = 89) data from STEMM faculty, we used thematic and HLM techniques to explore the relationships among industry experience, various situational factors, and transferable skills instruction. Results show that while most had industry experience (76.2%), transferable skills are rarely emphasized, a variety of individual (e.g., race) and institutional (e.g., discipline) factors are associated with transferable skills instruction, and that industry experience provides both generalized and specific cultural scripts for career- and skills-oriented teaching. We conclude that instead of promoting skills-focused instructional innovations via hiring policies that assume the value of one institutional culture over another, it is more useful and respectful (to faculty) to teach industry-based cultural knowledge via faculty development programming in a way similar to work-integrated learning (WIL) and communication in the disciplines (CID) initiatives.

Research article publication is often considered a critical indicator of academic institutions' success and productivity. It improves the institution's reputation, attracts talented students and faculty members, and increases the institution's chances of receiving funding opportunities from different funding agencies. This paper provides a reliable and sustainable methodology for improving the quality and quantity of research article publications for engineering institutions in India. The various tools, techniques, and initiatives that promote research culture and improve its outcome in terms of research papers are also discussed. A case study of Pimpri Chinchwad College of Engineering (PCCOE), Pune, India, depicts how predictive, prescriptive, descriptive, and diagnostic data analytics approaches help to identify the barriers in the research article publications in academic institutions and provides the ways to overcome them. It also helps to set the publication targets and develop the path to perceive the targets. The outcomes and effectiveness of the case study are discussed using the papers published in Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar databases. The challenges, opportunities, and recommendations are also provided for the smooth and effective implementation of the developed methodologies.

Administrators and faculty at many colleges and universities are dedicated to making the faculty hiring process fair and equitable. One program that has shown promise is to train and appoint a Diversity Advocate (DA) to serve on each faculty search and screen committee. In this study, we created and examined the early stages of a DA program at a single institution. After undergoing special training, the DA works on the search committee to encourage best practices and to discourage schemas and stereotypes from interfering with the process. Our DA program differs from some in that efforts are made to train DAs who are demographically in the majority, work in the area where the search is taking place, and have earned tenure or promotion. Training those who are demographically in the majority helps meet our goal of broadening the responsibility for evidence-based and equitable hiring practices across faculty members. While reliable data on hiring outcomes is not yet available, we developed a survey to evaluate the DA training and conducted focus groups to understand the DA experience better. Our results highlight how DAs intervened in the search process to make it more equitable. The interventions included encouraging the use of best practices, such as leading the committee in creating a rubric for evaluating candidates and intervening when bias was present. Our study provides evidence that a DA program is one way to expand the pool of faculty committed to inclusive excellence.

Following the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Islamophobia became increasingly visible across the U.S, impacting anyone perceived to be Muslim. Despite being named after a religion, Islamophobia is a racial ideology predominantly targeting people of Middle Eastern, North African, and South Asian (MENASA) descent. In this qualitative study, the author explores how MENASA students navigated their college campuses in the period shortly following the 2016 election through examining the ways in which MENASA-focused cultural centers provided spaces of inclusion and belonging. The findings suggest that processes of racial formation and panethnic identity formation influenced the experiences of MENASA students in this period. Students demonstrated both a clear sense of racialization outside of whiteness, and the beginnings of panethnic identity formation across groups. These findings are situated in the particular temporal context of college-aged adults who both experienced 9/11 as young children and the 2016 presidential election in early adulthood.

This study evaluates the effectiveness of the UCSF Summer Student Research Program (SSRP) in enhancing research-related skills, academic outcomes, and post-baccalaureate aspirations of underrepresented minority (URM) and non-URM undergraduate students in biomedical sciences and STEM fields. The SSRP, spanning 9 weeks, provides immersive research experiences, structured mentorship, trainings, seminars, and STEM education. Pre- and post-program survey data from eight cohorts (N = 315) were analyzed using paired-sample t-tests, MANOVA, and content analysis. Results demonstrate significant gains in critical thinking skills, research abilities, science identity, applied science skills, and readiness for a research career. Notably, participants exhibited improvements in understanding the research process, scientific thinking, science writing, and problem-solving. URM and non-URM students experienced similar gains, highlighting the program’s inclusivity. The SSRP also positively influenced students’ postgraduate aspirations. Some participants expressed heightened interest in pursuing Master of Arts, Ph.D., and M.D. degrees, indicating increased clarity and motivation towards advanced education and research careers. Furthermore, 87% of participants expressed a high likelihood of engaging in future research endeavors, underscoring the program’s sustained impact on research interest. This study underscores the transformative potential of a well-structured, intensive summer research program in significantly enhancing academic outcomes for URM and non-URM students alike. These findings align with the persistence framework, emphasizing the importance of early research experiences, active learning, and learning communities in fostering student success. The SSRP’s effectiveness in improving research skills and post-baccalaureate aspirations suggests its potential in diversifying the STEM fields, biomedical sciences and health-related professions.