Karen D. Arnold’s research while affiliated with Boston College and other places

Lower-income students with outstanding academic credentials often lack the knowledge and support to apply to highly ranked colleges and universities that they would be eligible to attend. This study investigated a national e-mentoring program, CollegePoint, that provided one-to-one mentoring to low- and moderate-income, high-achieving high school students. The 15-month mentoring program covered college choice, application, and financial aid processes. We employed a human ecology theoretical framework that highlights interactions among mentoring experiences, individual characteristics, and multiple environmental contexts. Results of 13 focus groups with e-mentors and interviews with 123 student participants and 8 project directors indicated that the virtual mentoring format was comfortable and often preferable to students. The remote mode of communication allowed for considerable variation in engagement, however, with some students consistently in contact with their mentors and others dropping out temporarily or permanently. Students who remained highly engaged with their mentors were those who needed help, felt a connection to their mentor, and appreciated the arms-length relationship enabled by the virtual format. For these students, e-mentoring gave them a realistic sense of their eligibility for admission to a range of selective colleges and helped them complete time-sensitive tasks and make thoughtful decisions. Consonant with ecological theory, CollegePoint appeared to act as a bridge between students’ immediate contexts and the policies, structures, and procedures related to college admissions and financial aid. When e-mentors were able to engage all aspects of students’ ecology, CollegePoint had the potential to transform the college application experience and even the self-concept of students.

Experience sampling method (ESM) and ecological momentary assessment (EMA) refer to a longitudinal research approach in which investigators collect self-reports and/or observational data at recurring intervals about study participants' everyday activities, affect, physical, and psychological states. Advances in Internet-enabled technology, along with the ubiquity of smartphone use among college populations, have vastly increased the feasibility of ESM/EMA research for higher education researchers. The chapter uses examples from higher education research to describe how existing and emerging technological affordances, including automated sensing, can be used to signal participant experience reports and to collect new forms of digital, written, visual, oral, and physiological data. The authors discuss problems and controversies in ESM/EMA research, present potential solutions to these issues, and consider the future of this evolving family of methods for higher education researchers.

Research that tracks low-income populations across educational transitions contains threats to validity that can compromise evidence-based educational policy and practice. The Big Picture Longitudinal Study is a national, multiyear study that follows low-income urban youth who were accepted into college as high school seniors. Triangulating the results of multiple longitudinal data sources showed that reported college aspirations and enrollment intentions were inconsistently and differently reported by students and teachers in the final semester of high school. Relying on a particular data source and time can result in mistakenly equating college aspirations and enrollment behaviors, these findings suggest. In particular, secondary school educators' inflated assumptions about their students' college aspirations can obscure the need for supportingmultiple pathways to college and work for low-income, firstgeneration high school seniors.

Tracking low-income students after high school graduation presents significant problems for data collection. The Connector Study is an attempt to increase and enrich outcomes data in a longitudinal study of low-income graduates of a national network of innovative high schools by gathering alumni updates through telephone interviews with high school staff members who remain in touch with their former students. Approximately 2 years after they worked with groups of students in high school, these individuals were able to provide information about education, job, and personal outcomes for 96% of 563 graduates. The Connector Study strategy offers a feasible method for collecting quantifiable outcome measures for longitudinal studies. This method also provides information about student change and individual circumstances that is difficult to obtain from students themselves, and that goes beyond the basic outcome indicators available through federal and state student tracking systems.

The summer after high school graduation is a largely unexamined stage of college access among underrepresented populations in higher education. Yet two recent studies revealed that anywhere from 10% to 40% of low-income students who have been accepted to college and signaled their intent to enroll reconsider where, and even whether, to matriculate in the months after graduation. This experimental study investigates the effect of providing college counseling to low-income students during the summer. We randomly assigned students at 7 innovative high schools to receive proactive outreach from high school counselors. The treatment focused on addressing financial and information barriers students faced. Results show that providing college counseling to low-income students during the summer months leads to substantial improvements in both the rate and quality of college enrollment. Students in the treatment group were 14 percentage points more likely to enroll immediately in college and 19 percentage points more likely to keep the postsecondary plans they developed during senior year. Policy recommendations include strategies for high schools and/or colleges to provide effective support during the post–high school summer.

College students have always searched for meaning and purpose through romantic and intimate relationships. As the dominant script for sexual activity on most U.S. residential campuses, “hooking up” explicitly separates physical intimacy from interpersonal closeness and mutual commitment. A developmental analysis of hooking up demonstrates that normative undergraduate identity development and meaning-making structures map closely onto the contemporary hook up peer culture. A developmental lens suggests why the hook up scene is resistant to change but also implies directions for effective campus intervention.

Rather than dwelling on why too many men don't succeed in college, trekker Karen Arnold examines the features of an experience in which many men do excel: the long hike from Georgia to Maine. Educators can learn why accomplishing this feat may be more rewarding than college.

Most students think that a college education, no matter where, is a ticket to success. But how much does this success depend on which college students attend? The author argues that institutional prestige is a more important factor in creating pathways to leadership than we think. (Contains 16 references.) (Author)