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INTRODUCTION: Students from low-income backgrounds (LIB) have been underrepresented in Canadian medical schools for over fifty years. Despite our awareness of this problem, little is known about the experiences of aspiring physicians from LIB in Canada who are working towards medical school admission. As a result, we do not have insight into the barriers and facilitators that may be used to increase the representation of students from LIB in Canadian medical schools. METHODS: This thesis describes a qualitative description interview study aimed at understanding the experiences of aspiring physicians from LIB as they attempt to gain entry to medical school. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 15 participants at different stages of their undergraduate, master’s, and non-medical professional education. RESULTS: We used the theories of intersectionality and identity capital as a theoretical framework for identifying barriers and facilitators to a career in medicine. Participants experienced social, identity-related, economic, structural, and informational barriers to a career in medicine. Intrinsic facilitators included motivation, self-confidence, attitude, strategy, information seeking and sorting, and financial literacy and increasing income. Extrinsic facilitators were social, informational, financial, and institutional in nature. CONCLUSION: This study fills existing gaps in the literature by identifying the pre-admissions barriers and facilitators encountered by aspiring physicians from LIB. This information will be useful to medical schools, organizations, and researchers interested in supporting underrepresented groups. Given that medical students from LIB are more likely to serve underserved populations, this is relevant to Canadian medical schools’ social accountability commitment to producing physicians that meet the health needs of marginalized and vulnerable patients. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc) / GOALS: This thesis describes an interview study aimed at understanding the experiences of aspiring physicians from low-income backgrounds (LIB) as they attempt to gain entry to medical school. Interviews were conducted with 15 participants at different stages of their undergraduate, master’s, and non-medical professional education. CONTRIBUTIONS: This study fills existing gaps in the literature by identifying the pre-admissions barriers and facilitators encountered by aspiring physicians from LIB. Participants experienced social, identity-related, economic, structural, and informational barriers to a career in medicine. Intrinsic facilitators included motivation, self-confidence, attitude, strategy, information seeking and sorting, and financial literacy and increasing income. Extrinsic facilitators were social, informational, financial, and institutional. This information will be useful to medical schools, supportive organizations and researchers interested in supporting underrepresented groups.

The present inquiry is a qualitative case study of conversations and attitudes of students participating in a non-required, second-year conversation section offered as a voluntary adjunct to required second year courses in Italian. The findings in this dissertation support calls by policy makers in foreign language education who advocate for a more integrated and holistic approach to foreign language education. Through this empirical qualitative case study, I have used the construct of Third Space (Gutiérrez, 2008) to examine students’ development of multiple literacies (Swaffar & Arens, 2005) in a foreign language conversation-based classroom. The theory of Third Space is seen as a kind of authentic intersubjective space, where students’ ways of knowing and learning are accepted and expanded in the learning environment. The study describes the results from the implementation of a language pedagogy based on the model of multiple literacies in an Italian conversation class. Students in the class read and viewed a wide variety of authentic materials, around which they anchored their class discussions. Through activities involving multiple readings of the given text, the students co-constructed their interpretations based on personal experiences and on the socio-cultural background of the text. Students also engaged in self-reflective exercises documenting their own learning processes. Through interpretive analysis of student work produced in the class, the ecology of learner developments and the corresponding classroom talk are assessed. I have identified three major themes that are evident as essential elements to the students’ developing trans-linguistic proficiency in conjunction with their evolving cultural literacy. In particular, self-reflection and identity, expanded practices of knowing and learning, and the influence of semiotic mediation on classroom interactions are the three elements that define how these students articulated their Third Space in conjunction with this particular language learning context. / text

Academic writing programs are one way universities seek to increase the academic achievement of first-year students and decrease attrition. This paper examines data from an evaluation of a first-year academic writing program at Canadian Mennonite University. The original program evaluation was conducted to determine student attitudes toward the program and whether the academic writing lab program increased students’ writing abilities. This thesis goes further by examining relationships between affective outcomes (motivation, self-regulatory ability, perceived writing ability), writing ability, and cumulative grade point average. Data was collected using student surveys and writing samples. The results indicated that academic attainment was positively correlated with: writing ability, motivation, and self-regulation. Motivation and self-regulation, but not perceived writing ability, correlated with actual writing ability. Participation in the Academic Writing Lab did not affect student affective characteristics. However, student writing ability did improve which indicates that even a small program can improve students’ writing skills. / October 2016

The increase in the number of nontraditional aged undergraduate students (25 yrs. and older) and students transferring between post-secondary institutions has raised the question of whether effective instruction is viewed the same by these different groups of students. This study addressed this question by analyzing the responses of these different groups to 23 instructional questions on a standard faculty evaluation form.

Foreign-born students complete college at a lower rate when compared to native-born students. It is essential to examine both the known and latent barriers that prevent foreign-born students from successfully completing the first four years of college. The purpose of this study is to assess the applicability of Bourdieuian notions of capital in explaining the discrepancy in educational attainment between foreign-born and native born students. The data is from the 1999 National Longitudinal Survey of Freshmen (n=3176), a survey designed to test various theoretical explanations for minority underachievement in higher education. Stepwise regressions were used to determine the individual impact of nativity, race, cultural capital, and economic capital to graduating within four years. In the unadjusted model, nativity was moderately associated with four-year graduation (β=0.760; p=0.053). However in the fully adjusted model, I found that race was more important than nativity status when predicting the odds of graduating, with African American students having a significantly lower odds of graduating in four years (β=0.576; p=0.000), than white students. Gender and economic capital were also significantly associated with 4-year graduation rates, with men less likely to graduate than women (β=0.733; p=0.000). And individuals in the highest income category (over $75,000/year) were more likely to graduate in four years than those in the making less than 19,999 per year (β=1.645; p=0.028). Parental disciplinary style was also a significant (p=0.000) correlate with four year graduation rates. Future studies should repeat these inquiries in a dataset that includes less selective institutions.

This study examined the self-reported perceptions of post-secondary Aboriginal students who were part of a peer mentoring relationship in the Promoting Aboriginal Community Together (PACT) program at the University of Manitoba. PACT supports Aboriginal students transitioning into university life by providing participants with social and academic development, activities, as well as the opportunity to be mentored by an upper-level Aboriginal student. This study asked whether their participation helped them persist in their academic goals and whether peer mentoring as an engagement strategy affects the sense of belonging to the university. The qualitative research design of this phenomenological study permitted a probing of the interview data documenting the experiences of the ten participants, Aboriginal students who had participated in PACT. Among the ways in which participants benefitted from PACT was expressed in themes such as: opportunity to participate in community with other Aboriginal students, networking, overcoming shyness, and getting academic advice. / May 2016

This research focuses on for-profit post-secondary education in the United States. Through autoethnography it seeks to examine the dissonance of function, belief and ethic in the role of a professional educator working in the proprietary industry. The autoethnographic data, based on personal memory data, email correspondence and interviews, show the challenges faced by staff and faculty in their efforts to meet revenue-linked performance targets set by corporate employers. The study uses grounded theory in conjunction with analytical autoethnography to identify the core concept of institutional pressure and to formulate a theory relating to the probable consequences of that pressure. While some staff and faculty are tempted to use questionable practices in order to meet required goals, others perceive they have no control over the circumstances that lead, for example, to the student attrition for which they are held responsible. The research describes how the autoethnographer and her co-workers were arguably recipients of negative feelings which were split and projected towards them by their employers and were unable to process or transform these negative feelings adequately. Some resigned from their positions and others were dismissed, but they departed taking this negativity with them in much the same way as a traditional scapegoat. As for-profit education continues to attract the attention of the media and regulatory bodies in the United States and similar colleges are established in other countries, this research has implications for those with expectations of education as a social good who find themselves required to work in a for-profit environment.

The purpose of this study was to conduct exploratory research regarding students' perceptions of blended learning environments at a state supported postsecondary institution. Specifically investigated were students' overall perceptions of blended learning environments, the reasons they chose to take a blended course, and whether generational differences existed in students' affected perceptions. An electronic survey was distributed to students enrolled in blended learning courses at the end of the spring 2009 term.

The purpose of this study was to ascertain whether the adoption of Open Educational Resources had a significant effect on student learning outcomes in seven courses taught at seven post-secondary institutions. The use of open educational resources (OER) is increasing in the United States. Initiatives focusing on expanding the use of OER as a replacement for traditional textbooks at the post-secondary level include OpenStax, Project Kaleidoscope, Open Course Library, and others. While researchers have begun to explore OER, few have sought to evaluate the quality of OER as a function of student academic success. In this dissertation, I examined measures of student success in seven courses at seven different early-adopters of Project Kaleidoscope where faculty members chose to adopt OER to replace traditional textbooks. The sample for this study consisted of students using open textbooks in courses at seven Project Kaleidoscope post-secondary institutions, as well as a control group of students at those same institutions who used traditional textbooks in sections of the same courses. I used an ex-post-facto quasi-experimental design, in which I compared students using OER to students using traditional textbooks in comparable courses. In order to control for the threat of selection bias, I used propensity score matching (PSM) to match treatment and control groups on a set of demographic variables. After creating matched treatment and control groups, I used multiple regression and logistic regression to examine whether textbook selection predicts a measurable difference in student achievement after accounting for relevant covariates. I found that students using open textbooks earned, on average, lower grades than students who used traditional textbooks, after controlling for student-level and course-level covariates. Further analysis revealed that this negative differential was isolated to students in business and psychology classes. I also found that students who used open textbooks enrolled in more credits than students using traditional textbooks, controlling for relevant covariates. Because of the finding of a variation in textbook effect from course to course, future studies may seek to understand the effects of particular OER adoption instances rather than the global effect of OER adoption.