Backtalk: Harnessing the power of career changers to address teacher shortages

School administrators across the country have been facing a worsening teacher shortage. Programs that attempt to fill gaps by promoting teaching among current high school students are helpful but cannot fill vacancies as quickly as is needed. Alan Mather of Golden Apple describes how their Accelerators program has begun inviting career changers and current college seniors who aren’t on an education track into their 15-month residency and licensure program. The program attracts professionals who are interested in teaching but lack the time or money for traditional preparation programs and puts them on a quicker path to teaching jobs in schools with high needs.

Nursing students’ confidence in clinical competency and job readiness during the COVID-19 pandemic era

Purpose: This study explored nursing students’ experiences of attending clinical practicum courses in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic era, focusing on their confidence in clinical competency and job readiness.Methods: The data for this study were collected using online questionnaires that were uploaded to a free online survey website and distributed via a link to the survey to 334 nursing students attending four-year nursing colleges at four national universities. Data analysis was done with descriptive statistics, independent t-tests, and ANOVA.Results: The participants were mostly female (83.2%) college seniors (78.1%). About 60% of the participants practiced between 40% to 100% of their clinical practicum hours in alternative ways. Almost a third of the participants reported that they were not ready for a job (30.2%). However, participants’ confidence in clinical competency and job readiness was not related to the rate of alternative practice, but rather to both achievement of educational outcomes and satisfaction in the nursing practicum.Conclusion: Due to COVID-19, it is evident that effective and efficient materials and ways of delivering clinical courses are constantly to be sought and developed. In particular, recently graduated nurses who experienced abrupt and considerable alterations in their clinical practicum courses due to COVID-19 are in need of attention while they strive to make clinical adaptations.

Undergraduate Research at a Teaching-Oriented College: Seniors’ Perspectives and Approaches to Consider

This study examines the relationship of undergraduate research (UGR) participation on senior students’ reported engagement, perceived gains, satisfaction with their educational experience and retention, and graduation status compared to peers that have not participated in UGR. Data were drawn from 1,472 senior students at a comprehensive, teaching-oriented public college, and collected from administration of the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) from 2015 to 2019, along with institutional data. This examination uniquely investigates outcomes of UGR participation besides persistence and graduation (which are already well documented) and leverages the lens of senior students in particular. In addition, this study contributes to the literature on UGR at teaching-oriented colleges, which has been sparse most likely because there are many more opportunities for UGR at research institutions. In line with several conceptual frameworks of student engagement, data analysis revealed that relative to their peers who have not participated in UGR, UGR-participating students have higher levels of engagement, perceived gains, and overall satisfaction. UGR-participating students also continued enrollment and/or graduated at a higher rate after reaching their senior status compared to non-participating peers. The implications for teaching-oriented colleges, as well as suggestions for how these institutions can enhance their undergraduate research programming, are discussed.

Transitioning to College: Experiences of Successful First-Generation College Students

This qualitative study explored the high school to college transition experiences of ten successful first-generation college students (FGCS). Participants were college seniors at an historically black university in the United States. A generic qualitative research design was used, including in-depth, semi-structured interviews to collect and analyze data. Participants reported that the transition experience led to confusion with academic and financial procedures, various emotions including anxiety and fear, the realization that they had deficits in academic skills, and the receipt of support from family members and others. Cultural and social capital appeared to play key roles in their success. Student affairs professionals are encouraged to explore targeted, individualized strategies that meet the needs of FGCS as they transition to college.

Chaos, Bedbugs, and Delayed Starts: Stories of Student Retention During Extreme Organizational Upheaval

Recent world events and the ever-changing nature of higher education mean that colleges and universities exist in a state of near-constant flux. This qualitative study explored the experiences of seven college seniors who persisted to graduation after beginning their college careers when their university was admitting lower-division students for the first time in the institution’s history—a significant organizational shift. Themes identified in the data highlight students’ choice to attend a college making major structural changes, what it was like to be the “first freshmen” when the institution was not fully prepared for their arrival, and the factors that led to their decision to persist at the institution. Using a theoretical framework of mattering, the findings suggest that helping students feel that they matter to the institution and reminding students that their adjustment may not be immediate are important strategies for those seeking to promote student retention.

Status Variation in Anticipatory Stressors and Their Associations with Depressive Symptoms

Members of structurally disadvantaged social groups report more frequent exposure to a variety of negative life events and chronic strains, yet little research has examined whether similar patterns exist for anticipatory stressors, or challenging circumstances that loom as potential threats in the future. This study uses data collected as part of a national survey of college seniors (N = 995) to examine how anticipatory stress regarding economic and residential security, exposure to traumatic events, and experiences of discrimination vary by gender identity, race-ethnicity, sexual orientation, and first-generation college student status. Consistent with stress theory, anticipatory stressors are more commonly reported by members of disadvantaged groups. Notably, variation in anticipatory stressors explains a nontrivial proportion of differences in depressive symptoms found across gender identity and sexual orientation categories. Findings signal the necessity of incorporating anticipatory stressors into research in the stress paradigm to further disentangle the contributions of social stressors to health disparities.

Incentivized Resume Rating: Eliciting Employer Preferences without Deception

We introduce a new experimental paradigm to evaluate employer preferences, called incentivized resume rating (IRR). Employers evaluate resumes they know to be hypothetical in order to be matched with real job seekers, preserving incentives while avoiding the deception necessary in audit studies. We deploy IRR with employers recruiting college seniors from a prestigious school, randomizing human capital characteristics and demographics of hypothetical candidates. We measure both employer preferences for candidates and employer beliefs about the likelihood that candidates will accept job offers, avoiding a typical confound in audit studies. We discuss the costs, benefits, and future applications of this new methodology. (JEL D83, I26, J23, J24, M51)