Education Commons^™

Small-Town Living: Do Illinois Universities Understand The Rural College Student?, Erik Andrew Dalmasso

Theses and Dissertations

Rural students are confronted with unique challenges when considering postsecondary choices. According to McShane and Smarick (2018), scholarship on this overarching issue is limited, as it is “often shunted to specialized journals that have not been able to integrate findings into the broader education policy conversation” (p. 1). Rural students, and to a broader extent, rural education have little voice in the postsecondary pathways that have been created within higher education (Goldman, 2019). Recruitment of rural students, financial aid policy, remediation/developmental programming, state and federal postsecondary legislation have largely treated rural students in tandem with their urban and suburban peers, …

Enabling And Threatening Factors Affecting Persistence. A Qualitative And Quantitative Study On Rural First-Generation Stem Students’ And Stem Faculty's Perspectives., Travis A. Miller

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

This study focuses on the factors that enable and threaten rural first-generation STEM students’ persistence. Limited empirical studies are available that focus on rural first-generation STEM majors’ persistence. Quantitative analysis was conducted using Kruskal Wallis H and Mann-Whitney U tests to determine any significant differences with the survey results. Content and thematic analysis was conducted on the student and faculty interviews to determine themes of enabling and threatening factors affecting persistence.

Enabling factors affecting persistence were found to be: Drive or Motivation, Experiences and skills, and Support. These were both faculty and student interview themes whereas a …