Using an ex-post facto, non-experimental approach, this research examined the impact of English language proficiency and multilingualism on the academic performance of international students enrolled in a four-year university located in north central Louisiana in the United States. Data were collected through a self-reported questionnaire from 59 students who were in their sophomore, junior or senior year of college. Statistical analyses revealed significant differences in language proficiency and multilingualism in relation to academic performance. The highest mean GPA was evident among students who had reported high levels of self-perceived English language proficiency, and among students who spoke at least three languages.

In their pursuit of tenure and promotion, African American female faculty members continue to prevail over workplace adversities such as ridicule, marginalization, alienation, isolation, and lack of information. In this descriptive phenomenological study, the lived experiences of five African American female professors who successfully navigated the tenure and promotion process at predominantly White institutions were explored through the lens of Black feminist thought and relational-cultural theory. Data analysis through a phenomenological reduction process revealed participants' experiences with systemic oppression, as well as the internal coping mechanisms and external supports they relied on to navigate the tenure process. Research implications and recommendations are discussed, ideally, to give hope to African American female faculty pursuing tenure and provide strategies for how higher education leaders can actively support these faculty members.

<p>Onwuegbuzie and Frels (2014) provided a step-by-step guide illustrating how discourse analysis can be used to analyze literature. However, more works of this type are needed to address the way that counselor researchers conduct literature reviews. Therefore, we present a typology for coding and analyzing information extracted for literature reviews based on Saldaňa’s (2012) coding methods. We present stages for conducting these analyses using an actual body of published works and illustrate how to use a computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software program, namely, QDA Miner. Finally, we delineate how using this systematic approach promotes counselor identity and addresses the call for ethical, transparent research and evidence-based practices.</p>

<p>The non-completion of doctoral degrees has been a concern due to its economic, social, and personal consequences. In the current study, the researchers investigated perceived barriers of select doctoral students in completing their doctoral degrees by utilizing a fully mixed sequential mixed research design. The quantitative and qualitative data were concurrently collected using identical samples (<em>n </em>= 205) via a Reading Interest Survey questionnaire. A sequential mixed analysis revealed 6 emergent themes: <em>external obligations </em>(36%),<em> challenges to doctoral-level researchers </em>(34%),<em> practical/logistical constraints </em>(23%),<em> emotional concerns </em>(15%),<em> program structure </em>(9%), and <em>support for completion </em>(8%). Also, 3 meta-themes were identified (i.e., <em>dissociation</em>,<em> external/internal barriers</em>, and <em>institutional/personal barriers</em>), which aided in explaining the relationships among the 6 primary themes.<em> </em>Implications of the findings are discussed.</p>

The purpose of this collective case study was to use a critical dialectical pluralistic (CDP) philosophical lens to investigate select doctoral students' perceptions about the challenges that they encountered while in a doctorate program and the coping strategies that they found effective in mitigating these challenges. A major goal of CDP is to empower research participants maximally by giving them the role of participant-researchers. Participants were 10 doctoral students enrolled at a Tier-II university in the United States, who were selected via convenience sampling. Each student participated in a face-to-face interview with a member of the research team-consistent with a CDP approach. A qualitative-dominant crossover mixed analysis was used wherein both quantitative and qualitative analyses were used to analyze the qualitative data, with the qualitative analysis phase being dominant. The qualitative analyses (e.g., constant comparison analysis, classical content analysis) revealed the following five themes: compartmentalization of life, outside support systems, justification for participation in program, emotional status, and structure of program. These themes indicated that although challenges are plentiful, particularly in terms of balancing one's academic life with other obligations, participants found support and encouragement from family, friends, and other doctoral students to be the most beneficial coping strategy. These findings have important implications for the structuring of doctoral programs.Material published as part of this publication, either on-line or in print, is copyrighted by the Informing Science Institute. Permission to make digital or paper copy of part or all of these works for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that the copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage AND that copies 1) bear this notice in full and 2) give the full citation on the first page. It is permissible to abstract these works so long as credit is given. To copy in all other cases or to republish or to post on a server or to redistribute to lists requires specific permission and payment of a fee.