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Bridging The Gap: Exploring The Need For Better System Representations In Higher Education, Corinne P. Wright

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Higher education constitutes a sociotechnical system. Some students enter with cultural experiences that support the new endeavor whereas others are woefully under-supported. Student preparedness often is tightly coupled with student background. Some ethnic minorities and students from impoverished backgrounds enter the university setting with a high risk of not persisting or completing their higher education pursuits (e.g., Kuh, Kinzie, Bridges, & Hayek, 2007). Traditional conceptualizations of risk identify immutable factors, such as SES, with little opportunity for immediate mitigation. Traditional interventions to mitigate risk include either fitting the student to the system (e.g., Tinto, 1993) or fitting the system to …