RamStart

According to the 2015 Bureau of Labor Statistics, nationally, students with disabilities are less likely to graduate with a bachelor’s degree and more likely to be unemployed.1 At VCU, these students are served by the Student Accessibility and Educational Opportunity Office (SAEO), which currently has only two case managers for 1500 registered students while the Association for Higher Education and Disabilities (AHEAD) recommends an individual case load of 350 or fewer students. While these students attend New Student Orientation, there are currently no programs or sessions specifically designed to address their needs. RamStart is a model for presemester transition workshops for new students who have been granted accommodations through SAEO for disabilities and their families which is designed to provide them with tools for self-advocacy and independence. The goal of these workshops is to help ease the students’ transition to VCU by educating them and their parents about SAEO’s services, their rights and responsibilities, Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), campus resources, and University policies and procedures to improve their chances of success

How Are They Going?: A Project to Monitor Student Engagement

The transition from school or work to university studies is not always a smooth change for many students. The university context may appear threatening, strange and isolating for some students, whether the courses be offered in on-campus or online contexts. While most modern day universities offer a raft of support services for students, including both academic and non-academic services, problems of low retention and high attrition rates still plague some institutions and some sections of particular institutions in the higher education sector. This paper presents an innovative program that uses technology-supported strategies within a regular learning management system (LMS) to arrest problems that may lead to students withdrawing from their courses. By focusing on students engaged in their first year of study, early intervention systems, known as the Virtual Mentoring Program (VMP) and the Learning Engagement Analytics Platform (LEAP), are presented as examples of how higher education institutions can reduce attrition and increase retention

Changing conceptions of students' career development needs

Abstract — This paper takes as its starting point a brief review of a range of theoretical assumptions about the nature of career learning and decision-making and plots the emergence of the notion of ‘employability’ as a predominant paradigm for the organisation and delivery of career guidance services in UK higher education. The acquisition of employability skills in students is essentially a deficit paradigm that the provision of work-oriented learning opportunities seeks to address. A key driver for the development of employability as an institutional priority is policy-making by governmental agencies that foregrounds university-business partnerships as a component of economic generation. The development of workbased learning (WBL) and work placements as part of higher education courses is shown to exemplify how responsibility for students’ employability development is increasingly shared between institutions and (prospective) employers. The paper draws upon recent research findings that explore issues of quality assurance in WBL and work placements and poses questions for institutional services aimed to support students’ transition from higher education to the labour market. Access to WBL and work placements appears to be stratified and different types of opportunity are taken up by particular groups of students. A relatively new way of conceptualising career learning as ‘career adaptability’ has been developed out of theories of career ‘constructivism’ and is suggested to provide a return to a more student-centred paradigm which has the potential to be more inclusive. Career adaptability is exemplified by the use of the career adaptability scale to support students’ self assessment of their career learning and development.Tempus Project 517119-TEMPUS-1-2011-RS-TEMPUS-SMG

Designing the Transition to Higher Education for Students from Under-Represented Groups

Universities are increasingly seeking to open access routes and identify ways of encouraging under-represented groups to consider higher education as an option. This cohort of students often have distinct challenges associated with disability, maturity and socioeconomic disadvantage. Maynooth University, through the Maynooth University access programme (MAP) and the Launchpad Orientation Programme (Launchpad), has proven successful in supporting these groups, helping them transition into and through higher education. Unfortunately the challenges associated with under-represented groups can lead to increased, often unarticulated difficulties, resulting in greater reliance on services and higher dropout rates compared to the average student. We discuss here a pilot study exploring the use of the design process to act as an agent of transition for MAP students entering 3rd level education. Learning was achieved through a multi-session, action based programme, where MAP students and staff, together with the University’s department of design Innovation, worked together to co-understand and co-design the transition. The pilot was a success both in terms of student engagement and future programme improvement. For students, the design workshops enabled valuable sharing of experiences and allowed them to contribute their ideas based on defined problems. For MAP staff, the research data collected provided actionable insights into the unarticulated needs and experience of students, reframed their understanding of the problems and provided new tools and collateral for further use

Student Veterans/Service Members' Engagement in College and University Life and Education

Since the passage of the Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act of 2008, also known as the Post-9/11 GI Bill, the enrollment of active-duty service members and veterans in American colleges and universities has increased substantially. According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, more than three-quarters of a million veterans have used their earned benefit to enroll in postsecondary courses. In response to the influx of veteran student enrollment, a group of higher education associations and veterans' organizations collaborated in 2009 and 2012 on a study that asked college and university administrators whether their institutions had geared up campus programs and services specifically designed to support the unique needs of veterans.1 The results indicated that administrators had indeed increased support levels, sometimes by quite significant margins.But how do student veterans/service members perceive their experiences at higher education institutions? To date, there is little or no information to assess whether the efforts by institutions to provide targeted programs and services are helpful to the veterans and service members enrolled in colleges and universities. Similarly, not much is known about the transition to postsecondary education from military service experienced by student veterans/service members, or whether these students are engaged in both academic programs and college and university life to their fullest potential. In this context, this issue brief explores student veteran/service member engagement in postsecondary education. The brief utilizes data from the 2012 National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), an annual survey of students enrolled in four-year universities, to assess how student veterans/service members perceive their integration on campus.A key finding is that student veterans/servicemembers are selective about the campus life and academic activities in which they invest their time. Student veterans/service members are morelikely to be first-generation students -- the first in their families to attend a college or university -- and older than nonveteran/civilian students; they therefore tend to have responsibilities outside of higher education that put constraints on their time.Student veterans/service members report placing greater emphasis on academic areas that they find essential for academic progress than on college and university life and activities -- academic or otherwise -- that are not essential for success in the courses in which they are enrolled. Student veterans/ service members are less likely to participate in co curricular activities, and they dedicate less time to relaxing and socializing than nonveteran/ civilian students

Evaluation of relationship between self-advocacy skills and college freshmen first semester grade point average for students with disabilities

This study was important in evaluating the relationship between self-advocacy skill and college freshman Grade Point Average (GPA) in Montana for students with disabilities. Research in this area was found to be incomplete and limited. The purpose of this study was to discover if there are inadequacies in students with disabilities preparation for higher education as per self-advocacy skills and how they related to GPA Individuals considered to have a disability in secondary education may be deemed ineligible for services and supports as adults. Secondary and post-secondary institutions rarely collaborated to establish consistent standards. The contrast between the relatively high level of assistance provided under IDEA and much lower level of assistance provided in post-secondary environments posed many transition issues for individuals with disabilities. This study utilized a quantitative research design and implemented a 28 question survey for data collection. The sample was drawn from students of the 14 public two and fouryear institutions of higher education currently within the Montana University System (MUS). The sample also consisted of the seven tribal colleges and three community colleges. Only students having experienced an Individualized Education Program (IEP) in the secondary setting and over the age of 18 were used in the data analysis. Results of this research indicated positive correlations with self-advocacy skills and first semester freshmen GPA for students with disabilities making the transition from secondary to post-secondary education. The evidence presented in this research supported the benefit of practices such as: (a) self-determination training (b) inclusion in general education programs (c) providing vocational training and preparation in high school (d) social skills training and support; and (e) transition planning that began in early high school. This study was built on, and added to, the field of transition research and education. Leaders in both secondary and post-secondary education may be able to use the outcomes of this study for specific transition practices to assist students transitioning into postsecondary education. Specifically, educational leaders may use the outcomes of this study to aid education professionals, disabilities services, parents, and students in successful education pursuits for students with disabilities

As the World Goes to College: International Student Experiences

Students from all over the world come to the United States each year in pursuit of higher education. Representing over 200 countries, students come to learn English, improve their skills or learn new ones, gain educational experience, and/or earn a degree. To achieve their goals, these students must make successful transitions to their new educational and social environment. The purpose of this inductive qualitative study was to discover what international students perceived as being important to them for making a successful transition to a university in the United States. This study was limited to international students who were unfamiliar with the U.S. higher educational system and were attending an U.S. university for the first time. Twenty-five eligible students were invited to participate and seven self- selected to be in the study. These students were asked to keep a written journal in English throughout their first term. They were asked to write at least three times a week. Each student was observed in a minimum of two classes. The observations provided a basis for the interviews. Each student participated in between two and four interviews throughout the semester. All interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed. Journals, observation notes and interview transcriptions were coded and analyzed for emerging themes. During their transition to the U.S. university system, international students perceived a change in their level of dependency. Students coming from independent situations felt more dependent and childlike during their initial transition to the U.S. university and students from dependent situations felt more independent during this transition. International students were more likely to seek advice from other students than from university personnel or services. International students wanted to feel connected to others on-campus, including other international students, and with American students. They experienced differences, anticipated or not, in the educational system including differences in teaching, use of language, approachability of faculty, and the concept of general education. The study concludes with a discussion of findings, implications and recommendations for universities and for further research

Empirical Evaluation of Educational Service Quality in the Current Higher Education System

During the transition to the mixed education model during the Covid-19 pandemic, some issues have emerged in the matter of providing and supporting the quality of university education in all countries, including educational programs' relevance to the demands of the labor market, expectations of students and their families, digital transformation of the educational process, and economic stability of institution networks. The purpose of the research was to evaluate the quality of educational services in the higher education systems of Indonesia and Russia. The study systematized several essential factors for achieving educational service quality in the current higher education systems, given the limitations imposed by Covid-19. Following this objective, the study utilized a quantitative approach, adopting the SERVQUALmodel that measures the service quality across five service dimensions: tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy. The model aided the development of the questionnaire to assess the quality of the educational services of Indonesian and Russian universities. The questionnaire included 25 close-ended questions on two scales: one to measure the students' expectations regarding the quality of educational services and the other to measure the students' current perceptions. A snowball technique was used to recruit students from Indonesian and Russian universities as participants in the study. The students were asked to assess the educational services of their universities based on their initial expectations and current perceptions. Overall, the students of both countries revealed that they had high expectations from the educational services of their universities. However, the current perceptions of the Russian students regarding the quality of educational services provided by their universities are higher and more positive than the perceptions of the Indonesian students regarding the quality of educational services being delivered to them. The findings of the study have implications for education practitioners. Doi: 10.28991/ESJ-2022-SIED-05 Full Text: PD

Gardner-Webb, CCC&TI Announce Bulldog Bound Program, New Co-Admission Agreements

Leadership from Caldwell Community College and Technical Institute (CCC&TI) and Gardner-Webb University have announced four new agreements that will create seamless pathways for students who want to start at CCC&TI and continue their education at Gardner-Webb. Providing a pathway for students who plan to earn a bachelor’s degree, the Bulldog Bound Co-Admission Program will provide students—who complete certain two-year associate degrees at CCC&TI with a 2.25 GPA or higher— with guaranteed admission to Gardner-Webb to finish their undergraduate degree. The Bulldog Bound program is designed to provide students with affordable access to higher education and additional support services during their time at CCC&TI for a successful transition to Gardner-Webb.https://digitalcommons.gardner-webb.edu/gardner-webb-newscenter-archive/1013/thumbnail.jp

Struggling first-year science students – who’s gonna fix them?

Research examining the first-year transition experience demonstrates that students struggle in finding a balance between academic, social and personal demands on their time (McInnis, 2001). This results in a misperception of the amount of work and time required to accomplish academic tasks (Watson et al., 2002). Most institutions attempt to ease this transition by offering a variety of academic and non-academic supplemental programs and services. When it comes to improving academic skills, another approach that is commonly used is to intentionally integrate these skills into the first-year curriculum. However, these efforts still occur during the period when students are struggling to adapt to their new social and physical environments, and to cope with the psychological and cognitive demands of higher education. Since there is limited time available in the university semester, a third approach to easing the first-year academic transition is to allow for more practice time between the introduction and the use of a particular academic skill. We will present our SPOT (Science Portal for Ontario Teachers) online module as an example of this third approach to facilitate the introduction of university-level academic skills within the high school curriculum. In this session, participants will identify key skill areas for development among first year students. This will provide the basis for the exploration of mechanisms through which university faculty and staff can work together with high school instructors to communicate the post-secondary academic skill expectations of students prior to their entering university. As a group, we will brainstorm “How can we introduce university-level academic skills into the high school setting?” and “Who is responsible?” McInnis, C. (2001). Researching the first year experience: Where to from here? Higher Education Research and Development, 20(2), 105-114. Watson, G., Johnson, G., & Billett, S. (2002). Ready or not? Results of an orientation week survey of education students. Paper presented at 6th Pacific Rim Conference on First Year in Higher Education, Christchurch NZ, July