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Postsecondary students, well-being, and sources of support

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Postsecondary students, well-being, and sources of support

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Postsecondary Students, Well-Being, and Sources of Support

Claudia Rodriguez

Rossier School of Education
University of Southern California
A dissertation submitted to the faculty
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Education

August 2023

© Copyright by Claudia Rodriguez 2023
All Rights Reserved

The Committee for Claudia Rodriguez certifies the approval of this Dissertation

Ralitsa Todorova
Mary Andres
Estela Andujo
Zoë B. Corwin, Committee Chair

Rossier School of Education
University of Southern California
2023

iv
Abstract
Postsecondary institutions hold great potential to cultivate students’ well-being. Yet many
postsecondary students experience negative well-being and struggle to find socio-emotional
support on campus. This study explores the interplay between students and postsecondary
institutions regarding well-being and is informed by the following:
1. How do at-promise students at three midwestern universities navigate their well
being during their 1st-year transition to college and what conditions facilitate their
well-being?
2. What barriers do at-promise students face in experiencing well-being?
This study is designed as a qualitative exploratory interview study. Findings demonstrate that
external student supportive factors like family support, instructors, advisors, counselors, mentors,
and peers made positive contributions to at-promise student well-being as they navigated their
1st-year transition to college. Findings also demonstrated that at-promise students were at
varying levels of development regarding their mobilization of internal student supportive factors;
specifically, their skills of self-awareness, social awareness, relationship management, and
coping skills. The analysis illustrated that at-promise students experienced a wide range of
stressors and were able to utilize external and internal student-supportive factors to be able to
continue with their college journeys. The findings showed how powerful of an impact a caring
and invested empowerment agent can have on students and their well-being and even on their
motivation to persist through college and graduate. Ultimately, data highlighted the complexities
of the development of individuals psychologically, socially, and academically.

v
Dedication
To my parents, William and Maria Elena Rodriguez, and brothers, Eddy and Chuck, thank you
for all your love and support.

To my grandmothers, Abuelita Lidia and Abuelita Rosario, thank you for your love and care.

To my friends who have become like family over the years, thank you for your support and
encouragement.

To my dogs who were by my side throughout the entire writing process, patiently waiting until
the end of the day for their walks, Mo’orea and Mahina, thank you.

To God, thank you for your unfailing love.

To all the instructors, advisors, supervisors, co-workers, and colleagues I have had in my life
journey, who have helped me and taught me so many valuable things, thank you. With all of you
in my life, so many things have been made possible.

vi
Acknowledgments
I especially want to thank my mentor, Estela Andujo, for her guidance and support during
my career and my dissertation chair, Zoë B. Corwin, for her loving support throughout this
dissertation process. Furthermore, I would also like to thank my dissertation committee member
Ralitsa Todorova, for helping me strengthen my dissertation. Moreover, I would also like to
thank Christine Rocha for all her help whenever I needed something at the last minute, she was
always able to provide an answer or guidance. In addition, I also want to thank my dissertation
committee member, Mary Andres, for her resourcefulness and guidance through this dissertation
process as well. And finally, I want to thank my dissertation group for their consistent
encouragement, Billy Vega, Khalilah Lauderdale, Alex Hazard, and Serina Bravo.

vii
Table of Contents
Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... iv
Dedication ....................................................................................................................................... v
Acknowledgments.......................................................................................................................... vi
Chapter One: Overview of the Study .............................................................................................. 1
Statement of the Problem .................................................................................................... 1
Purpose of the Study ........................................................................................................... 2
Research Questions ............................................................................................................. 3
Significance of the Study .................................................................................................... 3
The Landscape of Well-Being Services in the United States of America .......................... 5
Limitations .......................................................................................................................... 6
Definitions........................................................................................................................... 7
Organization of the Study ................................................................................................. 10
Chapter Two: Review of the Literature ........................................................................................ 11
Defining Well-Being ......................................................................................................... 11
Theoretical Framework ..................................................................................................... 15
The Landscape of Mental Health and Well-Being at U.S. Colleges and
Universities ....................................................................................................................... 20
The Impact of the 2020 Pandemic on Well-Being in Postsecondary Institutions ............ 22
The Effects of Well-Being on Postsecondary Student Success ........................................ 25
Approaches to Supporting the Well-Being of At-Promise College Students ................... 30
Summary ........................................................................................................................... 33
Chapter Three: Methodology ........................................................................................................ 35
Research Design................................................................................................................ 36
Data ................................................................................................................................... 37
Site Selection .................................................................................................................... 38

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Participants ........................................................................................................................ 40
Data Collection Procedures ............................................................................................... 40
Data Analysis .................................................................................................................... 42
Trustworthiness ................................................................................................................. 43
Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 48
Chapter Four: Findings ................................................................................................................. 49
Participant Characteristics ................................................................................................ 52
Thematic Presentation of Findings ................................................................................... 54
Discussion ....................................................................................................................... 106
Chapter Five: Discussion ............................................................................................................ 107
Key Findings ................................................................................................................... 107
Reflection on Findings .................................................................................................... 110
The Relationship Between Internal Supportive Factors and External Supportive
Factors ............................................................................................................................. 111
Discussion on Supportive Factors Conducive to Student Well-Being ........................... 112
Discussion on Disparities ................................................................................................ 113
Implications for Policy and Practice ............................................................................... 115
Recommendations for Further Research ......................................................................... 119
Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 119
References ................................................................................................................................... 121
Appendix A: Student Interview Protocol ................................................................................... 131
Cohort 1 Student Protocol: November 2021 ................................................................... 131
Appendix B: Student Interview Protocol .................................................................................... 136
Cohort 1 Student Protocol: March/April 2022, 60-minutes ........................................... 136
Appendix C: Student Interview Protocol .................................................................................... 138
Cohort 1 Student Protocol: August 2022, 60-minutes .................................................... 138

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1

Chapter One: Overview of the Study
Colleges and universities have the potential to provide supportive opportunities for
students to get the help they need to be well psychologically, socially, spiritually, and physically.
The college experience can be a time when students continue to develop socioemotionally as
they navigate various postsecondary milestones and prepare to enter the workforce as
professionals with degrees. Students are exposed to many factors that can influence their
development, as their adolescence is marked by a socialization process whereby youth are
actively engaged in social interactions with various individuals, authority figures, groups, and
networks, within a complex social universe (Stanton-Salazar, 2011). This study examines how
students are experiencing their 1st year of college and how they are managing all their
responsibilities and social relationships. Higher education students can experience social,
academic, and financial stressors which contribute negatively to their mental health; for example,
college students are paying more for college than ever before (Hurst et al., 2011). Financial
stressors are just one factor that can negatively affect college students; this study explores how
students manage various stressors. Navigating college often entails young adults learning how to
manage stressful situations (Hurst et al., 2011). This study is designed to learn more about the
challenges students face in developing a strong sense of well-being, the supportive factors
students are using to manage their stressors, as well as to better understand how postsecondary
institutions best support students’ well-being.
Statement of the Problem
One of the problems this study will address is the well-being of college students. Cecil
and Melidona discuss the results from a November 2021 Pulse Point Survey for the American
Council on Education on January 13, 2022, for college and university presidents, “more than
2

two-thirds of all presidents (68 percent) in the December survey identified student mental health
as a pressing issue” (p. 2). This highlight goes hand in hand with how this study explores student
well-being. Mental health situations are also presented in this study and specific details are
discussed regarding how students navigated their college journeys with the current existing
college resources. The final chapters of this study will make recommendations to improve how
colleges and universities might better support the well-being of their students.
Purpose of the Study
This dissertation study will provide insights into how at-promise (i.e., students from
historically marginalized and racialized backgrounds and/or who are the first in their families to
attend college, Bettencourt et al., 2023) experience well-being to inform what additional supports
can be implemented at the university and or administrative level to better support students. The
study will focus on how at-promise students experience well-being, navigate stressors, access
support services, and when and how they thrive.
This study focuses on the different sources of support that help at-promise students and
their overall well-being. Sources of support can be located internally and externally; for example,
according to the positive youth development theory, there are six Cs that students can foster
internally to thrive: competence, confidence, character, connection, commitment, and caring
(Lerner, 2021). The study participants include low-income Black and Indigenous people of color
(BIPOC) students who participated in a larger study of at-promise student success conducted at
three universities in the mid-western part of the United States of America. Data for this study
derive from longitudinal interviews with 10 students conducted during the 2021 –2022 school
year as part of a large-scale, multi-year, mixed methods research study.
3

Research Questions
Two main research questions inform this qualitative study:
1. How do at-promise students at three midwestern universities navigate their well
being during their 1st-year transition to college and what conditions facilitate their
well-being?
2. What barriers do at-promise students face in experiencing well-being?
This study seeks to understand the specific elements of student experiences that are perceived to
foster a supportive experience for at-promise students.
Significance of the Study
Reinert et al. (2021) reported that over 50 million Americans are experiencing mental
illness and over 28 million with a mental illness do not receive treatment, more than 2.7 million
youth are experiencing severe major depression, 60% of youth with depression do not receive
mental health treatment, and over 1.2 million youth with private insurance do not have coverage
for mental or emotional difficulties. Despite these grave statistics, many students in the United
States appear to be seeking mental health services and seeking help to address their problems
(Brown, 2020). Furthermore, there is a mental health crisis in higher educational settings with
students seeking mental health support and colleges are not able to meet their needs (Brown,
2020). A discrepancy exists, by race, however, in the likelihood of accessing mental health
support. For example, in 2018, about 45.5% of White students sought mental health treatment,
while 33% of Latinx and 25.5% of Black students sought treatment (Brown, 2020). It is
unknown why White students sought mental health services more than Latinx and Black
students, one assumption can be that it was because White students felt more empowered to seek
support (Brown, 2020). There is a history of discrimination, racism, and oppression affecting
4

people of color; specifically, in providing health care services (Feagin & Bennefield, 2014). In
the 19th and 20th centuries, Black women and men had unethical medical procedures done to
them in the name of medical research (Feagin & Bennefield, 2014); consequently, it is no
wonder people of color do not trust the healthcare system and do not try to access it for help
when in the past this systemic institution of care has brought upon them harm and sometimes
even death. In Chapter Four, I will discuss how this study’s data shows how some BIPOC
college students were able to access supportive factors more successfully than others. The
findings will be analyzed and final recommendations will be made taking into consideration the
nuances of 10 BIPOC students in three midwestern American universities, specifically in their
1st-year transition to college. This study will make recommendations based on existing literature
for practice to help decrease the gap that exists between students of color and services;
specifically, how to build a relationship of trust to help decrease the gap that continues to exist
between students and the services that they sometimes need and that they are not able to access
for different reasons.
Returning to the main topic of this section in the study, in general, many students are
seeking help, but many are still going without treatment (Reinert et al., 2021). This study aims to
better understand nuances in student experiences as they journey through college and the
supportive services they decide to access. Increasing understanding of the postsecondary mental
health landscape, with a focus on BIPOC-identifying students, has to potential to positively
impact practice. Since this study is in three midwestern universities and focuses on the
experience of only 10 students, findings cannot be generalized to students across the country.
However, the findings are transferable, and the final chapter offers recommendations for further
valuable research to be conducted.
5

The Landscape of Well-Being Services in the United States of America
The Current State of Well-Being
Reinert et al. (2021) reported in a yearly survey for Mental Health America highlighting
the current mental health concerns in the United States of America. Reinert et al. (2021)
specifically addressed adult prevalence of mental illness, current policy implementations, youth
prevalence of mental illness, adult access to care, youth access to care, disparities in mental
health treatment for youth of color, and mental health workforce availability. Reinert et al.
(2021):
Nearly 50 million Americans experienced mental illness in 2019, 4.58% of adults report
having serious thoughts of suicide, 15.08% experienced a depressive episode in the past
year, 24.7% of adults with a mental illness report an unmet need for treatment, this
number has not declined since 2011, and over 60% of youth with major depression do not
receive any mental health treatment, even in states with the greatest access. (p. 8)
It is important to know these statistics because some of these adults are in college which speaks
to the specific population being explored in this study. Moreover, Hyun et al. (2006) state that
“in the field of university counseling the severity of mental health problems on campus has been
steadily increasing” (p. 248). More specifically, Benton et al. (2003) did a 13-year study from
1988 to 2001 and concluded that
Students who are seen in counseling centers today frequently have more complex
problems that include both the normal college students’ problems, such as difficulties in
relationships and developmental issues, along with more severe problems, such as
anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation, and personality disorders. (p. 72)
6

Normal developmental problems were evident but also more severe problems like the onset of
personality disorders were observed more frequently. Later in this chapter, student support
services will be reviewed that address these mental health concerns. In the next chapter,
historical information is presented to give the reader a sense of how the approaches to well-being
in higher education have evolved to the present day.
Limitations
As with all research, the present study has limitations. The results of this study were
derived from a very specific sample, a small group of students (n = 10) who attended three
different types of universities in the midwestern region of the United States of America. Due to
the study’s research design, the findings cannot be generalized to other institutions (Merriam &
Tisdell, 2016). Furthermore, due to the small sample size of interview participants who were
purposefully selected, findings cannot be generalized to other students within midwestern
universities. While in-depth information was gathered from the students, one cannot assume that
all students in all colleges in the United States of America are having the same experiences.
Despite this limitation, Merriam and Tisdell (2016) stated that, “what we learn in a particular
situation we can transfer or generalize to similar situations subsequently encountered” (p. 255).
Thus, the findings from this study are transferable to similar situations; for example, with similar
college campuses in similar settings (similar cities in the United States of America).
Delimitations
A study delimitation is that the interviews conducted with the students were only partially
focused on their well-being and thriving and were collected before I participated in the project;
consequently, the analyzed data was not entirely aligned with my research questions. Another
delimitation is that I focused my analysis on student interview findings, and the dataset includes
7

various forms of data such as interviews with staff and faculty and quantitative data. This
delimitation excludes significant data. This concern is mitigated by the robust interview dataset I
analyzed including a series of longitudinal responses, as well as my ability to be in conversation
with other researchers who are analyzing other facets of the dataset. Despite these two
delimitations, the findings are poised to make a valuable contribution to the field because of the
high-quality data I was able to analyze and the robust insights shared by interview participants.
Definitions
This specific section of definitions will focus on words that will help the reader
understand some complex terms that will be used throughout the chapters. It is important to
know these foundational terms before beginning the discussion on how this study will proceed.
Mental Health
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), mental health is “a state of well-
being in which the individual realizes his or her abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of
life, can work productively and fruitfully, and can make a contribution or her community”
(Galderisi et al., 2015, p. 231). This study will look at how college students manage their well-
being during their 1st year of college. Mental health can also be divided into different areas of
one’s life. For example, according to WHO, there are three components of mental health:
emotional well-being, psychological well-being, and social well-being (Galderisi et al., 2015, p.
231). The different areas of mental health will also be looked at in this study. The next definition
is regarding how well-being is defined.
Well-Being
The definitions of mental health and well-being need to be differentiated. The Cambridge
Dictionary defines well-being as “the state of feeling healthy and happy” (Cambridge University
8

Press, 2019). Akin to how mental health has different areas composing its definition,
Manderscheid and colleagues (2010) point to multiple indicators of well-being including “life
satisfaction, purpose, personal growth, environmental mastery, self-acceptance, autonomy, and
positive relationships” (p. 3). As such, different areas of life are taken into consideration for an
individual to have a good sense of well-being and mental health.
Thriving
Equally important to understanding well-being is the term “thriving,” Schreiner (2010)
presents thriving as the experiences of college students who are fully engaged intellectually,
socially, and emotionally (p. 4). Thriving college students are academically successful and
experience a sense of community and a level of psychological well-being that contributes to
graduation (Schreiner, 2010). Lerner et al., (2002) describe thriving as a developmental process
that is regulated. This definition will also help the reader connect with another theory presented
later in this study when analyzing the findings. Lerner et al.’s (2021) definition of thriving is
taken into consideration in this study because as they review early definitions of thriving left out
the “voices” of people of color and the complexity of the experiences they were having in their
communities within an oppressive system. Lerner et al.’s (2021) definition of thriving is also a
call for social justice to be practiced as the youth are also supported through programs in their
community to “thrive.” The other theory that will be discussed is systems theory, specifically,
the person in the environment concept (Robbins et al., 2019), like Lerner et al.’s (2002) person in
context concept, what is specifically observed in this study is how the college students thrived in
the midst of the activation of positive external supportive factors (supportive individuals like
family, instructors, advisors, and mentors and positive safe physical spaces) and internal
supportive factors (internal skills like coping skills, relationship management skills, and time
9

management skills). In summary, these theories look at how an individual is developing and
thriving in their environments and will be used to further understand the complexity of college
student experiences.
BIPOC
The first reference to this acronym, which stands for Black, Indigenous, and people of
color can be dated back to a social media tweet in 2013 (Garcia, 2020). As a phrase, “people of
color” dates back centuries, it was first cited in The Oxford English Dictionary, with the British
spelling “colour,” in 1796, and is often abbreviated as POC. The other two letters, for Black and
Indigenous, were included in the acronym to account for the erasure of Black people of African
descent and Native American people, to make sure the definition was inclusive (Garcia, 2020).
First-Generation
A first-generation student is the first person in their family to go to college or university
and complete their degree (Toutkoushiam, 2018).
At-Promise Students
The term “at-promise” refers to students who identify as low-income, first-generation,
and/or racially/ethnically minoritized students (Kitchen et al., 2021). Bettencourt et al. (2023)
examine the at-promise concept from a framework of validation to counter deficit labeling,
First, the use of at-promise terminology emphasizes strength-based approaches that are
not siloed around specific identities but instead allow for the opportunity to build
coalitions around shared resilience and resistance to oppression. Second, the idea of
promise can underscore institutional accountability for creating new structures and
systems that support all students, consistent with the framing of education as a public
good for societal benefit. (p. 16)
10

The framework of validation to counter deficit thinking means that instead of looking at students
through a perspective of weaknesses and faults, another perspective is taken where the student is
looked at with strengths and potential. According to Bettencourt et al. (2023), it is important to
look at U.S. history regarding the at-promise definition and how it has evolved over the years;
for example, it started with labeling this group of students with negative characteristics, like
doing poorly in school, and has changed to now include a broader range of characteristics
empowering the student to succeed.
Empowerment Agents
Stanton-Salazar (2011) states that empowerment agents,
understand the power of institutional support (an organization’s resources) and social
capital (an individual’s personal resources) in the lives of youth and students from
historically oppressed communities; they carry a vision of a more just, humanistic, and
democratic society, deeply committed to an enlightened and fair distribution of societal
resources, and to dismantle the structures of class, racial, and gender oppression. (p.
1098)
Organization of the Study
The study is organized into five chapters. Chapter One introduced the topic of the study,
the research questions, and the significance of the study. Chapter Two reviews the literature
relevant to the study. Chapter Three describes the methodology of the study, including the
sampling techniques and the procedures used to collect and analyze the data. Chapter Four
describes the results of the study and the final chapter discusses those results and their
implications for future practice, research, and policy.

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Chapter Two: Review of the Literature
The following literature review focuses on factors that help students navigate their well-
being during their college and university experiences. The purpose of this chapter is to outline
foundational background research that informs this study. Highlighted topics will include factors
that help students succeed in higher educational institutions (HEIs), student well-being, student
academic strengths, community, and university sources of support for students. Rather than
focusing on what is lacking inside a student, a different approach will be taken with the belief
that students already have sources that are not fully activated but can be nurtured to ultimately be
more successful in HEIs. The chapter will be divided into significant definitions, different
theories and concepts informing the study, an overview of well-being in the United States of
America and higher educational institutions, effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, sections on
internal and external student supportive factors, ending with a summary of the literature
presented.
Defining Well-Being
Mental Health
The first chapter of this study offered a definition of mental health. This specific section
will provide a deeper discussion about this topic for the reader to be able to understand the
significance of this term as the reader continues to review this study. Galderisi et al. (2015),
proposed a global definition of the concept of mental health,
Mental health is a dynamic state of internal equilibrium that enables individuals
to use their abilities in harmony with the universal values of society. Basic
cognitive and social skills; ability to recognize, express and modulate one’s own
emotions, as well as empathize with others; flexibility and ability to cope with
12

adverse life events and function in social roles; and harmonious relationship
between body and mind represent important components of mental health which
contribute, to varying degrees, to the state of internal equilibrium. (p. 232)
This definition is important for the reader to know because as they continue to read this study,
they will know why so many areas of a student’s internal life are being talked about. Mental
health is a very complex concept and it needs to be understood as the reader reviews all the
sections of this study. The first part of the definition takes into consideration how the state of
mental health is dynamic, which means, that it is not static, it changes, and it goes up and down.
Galderisi et al. (2015) talk about how an individual can be happy and sad, and this study will be
reviewing the happy and sad parts of a student’s life. The next part of the definition recognizes
the cognitive abilities one uses to express one’s own emotions, and this part is also specifically
reviewed in the study with the emotional intelligence students use to activate their coping skills
to improve their mental status situations, social relationship situations, academic situations, and
financial situations.
The different internal and supportive factors that contribute to a good report on a
student’s mental health will be reviewed in subsequent sections of this chapter. The specific
student internal supportive factors highlighted in this study are self-awareness, motivation, social
awareness, relationship management skills, emotional intelligence, and coping skills. The
specific student external supportive factors examined in this study that contribute to student
mental health are family support, institutional agents like instructors, advisors, and mentors, and
safe physical positive spaces, like those associated with student associations, libraries, dorm
buildings, and gyms. Certain concepts reviewed in this chapter help lay the foundation to
understand what college students are experiencing psychologically, academically, and
13

socially. Another important concept to keep in mind is how these areas all interact with each
other. The definitions of each specific concept are being reviewed in these sections because the
reader needs to be able to differentiate these areas from one another. Chapter Four provides data-
rich examples of how these areas affect each other. The next concept that will be reviewed is
“well-being” to compare its differences with the definition of “mental health.”
Chapter One already defined well-being and how it needs to be differentiated from
mental health. Mental health can be considered an active internal cognitive state where an
individual looks at the different areas in their life and functions positively in society versus well-
being can be considered more of a feeling of health in all areas of life; consequently, these
definitions are similar yet different. Different areas of life are taken into consideration for an
individual to have a good sense of well-being and mental health. This study will look at diverse
components of well-being among college students and takes into consideration how supportive
services can have a positive impact on them. In addition, the concept of “wellness” emphasizes
how the different areas of well-being can influence each other and are reviewed in this
section. Just like well-being, wellness also has similar specific areas like social wellness,
emotional wellness, physical wellness, intellectual wellness, spiritual wellness, psychological
wellness, occupational wellness, and environmental wellness. A summary of Roscoe’s (2009)
findings discusses a holistic model of wellness reviewing how
• Wellness is not just absence of illness.
• Wellness is described in terms of various factors that interact in a complex,
integrated, and synergistic fashion. (p. 218)
Roscoe (2009) also states that “the wellness approach is holistic within the person and with the
environment” (p. 218). Roscoe (2009) also found that most authors “outlined the necessity of
14

balance or dynamic equilibrium among dimensions” (p. 218). Roscoe’s (2009) insight is like the
same insight Galderisi et al. (2015) were able to provide regarding mental health and how it is a
dynamic state of internal equilibrium. Fourthly, Roscoe (2009) found that “several models define
wellness as the movement toward higher levels of wellness or optimal functioning, and that
wellness is, therefore, partially dependent on self-responsibility as well as one’s motivation” (p.
218. This study will review how students decided to improve wellness in their lives when it was
lacking academically, psychologically, socially, or financially. The concepts of mental health,
well-being, and wellness are very complex. This study will show how students’ internal and
supportive factors contributed to their well-being. Finally, Roscoe (2009) found that wellness is
viewed as being a continuum, not as an end state. As will be later discussed in Chapter Four in
more detail, the findings showed that the students made decisions to increase their wellness
during their 1st year of college.
Physical Well-Being
An important area of well-being is physical well-being, defined by Gillett-Swan and
Sargeant (2015) as “optimal physical health, enjoying a healthy and nutritious diet combined
with exercise” (p. 136). Having physical well-being can also contribute to an individual’s overall
sense of well-being. As Conversano et al. (2010) state:
Through the employment of specific coping strategies, optimism exerts an indirect
influence on the quality of life. Optimism may significantly influence mental and
physical well-being through the promotion of a healthy lifestyle as well as by adaptive
behaviors and cognitive responses, associated with greater flexibility, problem-solving
capacity, and a more efficient elaboration of negative information. (p. 25)

15

This literature review will later discuss how college students utilize coping skills and how that
helps them through their difficult college experiences; specifically, addressing their physical
well-being. As will be further discussed in Chapter Four student data showed that students were
able to use their internal supportive factor of emotional intelligence to make decisions to be well
and go to the gym and improve the physical well-being area of their lives.
Spiritual Well-Being
A definition of spiritual well-being suggested by the National Interfaith Coalition on
Aging states that “spiritual well-being is the affirmation of life in a relationship with God, self,
community, and environment that nurtures and celebrates wholeness” as cited in Ellison (1983,
p. 331). Spiritual well-being takes the wholeness of a person as important and is helpful when
applied to a more holistic view of a college student. Once practitioners have a holistic sense of a
student’s well-being, suggestions can be made for the most effective student support services.
Physical and spiritual well-being are main areas found inside well-being and mental health and
these definitions are mentioned because these themes arose in the findings and it is important for
the reader to know the definitions of these concepts to be able to understand the discussions
inside the Chapter Four and Chapter Five (analysis of findings and final recommendations).
Theoretical Framework
Certain individual and environmental factors help a student have healthy development in
all areas of their lives (Lerner et al., 2002). According to Erikson’s developmental theory,
individuals develop at different stages in life and acquire certain skills to function in different
settings (Erikson, 1968). And according to systems theory and the concept of the person in the
environment (Robbins et al., 2019), supportive environments can contribute to an individual’s
development. However, this is not the case for everyone. The student data in Chapter Four will
16

show that even when students were not in supportive environments some were flourishing
socially and psychologically. Lerner et al., (2002) also talk about the different layers of human
development and what it means to society stating, “temporal embeddedness means there always
exists, across the lifespan, the potential for change in person-context relations” (p. 14). It is
important to see what helps a person internally and externally as they continue to develop over
their lifespan as Chapter Four will present with the student data. Lerner et al. (2002) specifically
talk about the whole “integrative development of a person in society, the importance of a socially
just, democratic, and civil society, and how the developmental process involves moral
development, civic engagement, and spiritual development among youth” (p. 14). But again, as
the data will show this is not the case for everyone. Some individuals can function in society as
Lerner et al. (2002) discuss but do not have certain aspects to a positive report on their mental
health and their well-being. Again, mental health and well-being are complex concepts and it is
difficult to judge using different cultural standards across the world and decide who is doing well
(Galderisi et al., 2015). It is important to have in mind that college students have the potential to
experience many different areas of development while navigating their postsecondary education.
Chapter Four data illustrate how diverse areas of development impact a student’s well-being.
Thriving Theory
Expanding on student well-being, this study also explores how students thrive. Schreiner
(2010) presents thriving as “the experiences of college students who are fully engaged
intellectually, socially, and emotionally” (p. 10). In the last chapters of this dissertation, findings
illustrate ways in which students are thriving and not thriving. Findings also illustrate how some
students are more developed in their coping skills and relationship management skills. Thriving
college students are academically successful and experience a sense of community and a level of
17

psychological well-being that contributes to graduation (Schreiner, 2010). Chapter Four provides
examples of the internal and external factors that contribute to BIPOC student well-being and
thriving as they continue their college journeys.
Schreiner (2010) argues how important it is to define success for students in college
beyond their grades and graduation, and that a “focus on thriving encourages a more holistic
view of student development that expands to include healthy relationships, a sense of
community, contributing, and proactively coping with life’s challenges” (p. 10). This study takes
a holistic view of thriving students, taking into consideration their intellectual, social, and
emotional development. The lives of college students are very complex, and many things
transpire internally and externally. Beyond solely defining success as having a high-grade point
average (GPA) and graduating with a university diploma Schreiner (2010) presents a different
way to look at success. She suggests that a successful student can have psychological and social
development as a young adult and has been able to acquire actual life skills that will help them
with difficult situations in their futures. Schreiner (2010) states, “thriving college students not
only are academically successful, they also experience a sense of community and a level of
psychological well-being that contributes to their persistence to graduation and allows them to
gain maximum benefit from being in college” (p. 4). Schreiner (2010) discusses how thriving is
comprised of “(a) engaged learning, (b) academic determination, (c) positive perspective, (d)
diverse citizenship, and (e) social connectedness” (p. 4). Schreiner (2010) discusses how thriving
can be cultivated individually inside students by changing them psychologically with a strength-
based and holistic approach. As reviewed in the next section Lerner et al. (2002) discuss how
thriving can be affected by an individual’s environment.
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Lerner et al. (2002) state that “Relative plasticity and developmental regulation frame a
conceptualization of a life-span developmental process that may be labeled as thriving” (p.
14). Lerner et al. (2002) discuss like systems theory’s person in the environment concept (Von
Bertalanffy, 1950), how the youth can develop over a lifespan and contextualizes their growth in
relation to society. Lerner et al. (2002) state that “young people can contribute to their
community as the result of having behaviors such as the six C’s: commitment, competence,
confidence, character, social connection, and caring” (p. 23). This study looks at the internal
supportive factors students hold and how they contribute to their well-being at all levels. Lerner
et al.’s (2002) model informs the analysis in later chapters regarding how students are managing
their college workload, their relationships, and their decisions.
Ultimately, Lerner et al. (2002) argue that “thriving is a process concept from a
developmental systems perspective, a youth who is thriving is engaged in person-context
regulatory processes that eventuate in healthy and productive adult personhood” (p. 25). This
study takes a specific look at the college students who are thriving in their development of
coping skills and relationship skills and those that have yet to learn and grow. Lerner et al.
(2002) look at society as a whole and how the development of the youth can have a positive
impact,
such adults productively build the assets of their community and manifest moral
orientation, spirituality, and behavioral commitment to ensure for themselves, their
families, and their broader social world the quality, scale, and sustainability of the
institutions of social justice and civil society. (p. 26)
More importantly, Lerner et al. (2009) discuss how the complex concept of thriving can be
promoted in higher educational institutions versus Schreiner (2010) who discusses how thriving
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can be cultivated from a psychological viewpoint. When Lerner et al. (2021) discuss “thriving”
they do so in a way that takes into consideration how it is a longitudinal process and how it can
be affected by a youth’s environment. Final recommendations will be discussed in the last
chapter of this paper to suggest ways that programs and institutions might support college
students thriving that can be applied at the individual relational level and administrative
level.
Erikson’s Developmental Theory and Systems Theory
Additional applicable foundational theories that also speak to the data being analyzed are
systems theory (Robbins et al., 2019) with Erikson’s developmental theory (Erikson,
1968). Erikson’s developmental theory lays out different stages where individuals can develop
certain skills depending on their age. Erikson’s theory describes the psychosocial development of
an individual at different stages and ages in life (Erikson, 1968). Erikson (1968) takes into
consideration how culture and environment can impact an individual. Erikson (1968) also takes
into consideration an individual’s potential for development (Robbins et al., 2019) and how a
person’s attitude or perspective toward oneself, others, and the world can change. It is important
to know these types of theories because they can help researchers understand the experiences
college students are going through and what can help them develop the skills they need to have
improved states of well-being.
The other perspective that can be used to understand individuals is systems theory with a
person in environment perspective, “Living systems are open systems, maintaining themselves in
exchange of materials with the environment” (Von Bertalanffy, 1950, p. 23). With systems
theory (Von Bertanlanffy, 1950), energy is expended in “forms of communication and use of
resources internally and externally” (p. 23)—concepts useful in this study for analyzing how
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students interact with their families, peers, and educational staff and how they manage their
internal sources of support, like their coping skills, emotional intelligence, and self-awareness
skills. According to Von Bertanlanffy (1950), the functions individuals utilize are designed for
“protection, maintenance, and survival” (p. 23) and these concepts will be utilized to analyze
how students create healthy boundaries for their well-being, how they are able to navigate their
1st year of college, and how they are able to improve their situations socially, academically, and
psychologically. Von Bertanlanffy’s (1950) concept of the person in the environment will also be
used to analyze the student data specifically regarding the students’ environments at home, at
school, and with some at their jobs.
A critique of Erikson’s (1968) developmental theory is that it “does not attend to the
fluidity of family life cycles and configurations; specifically, the family and the process of
growth and developmental of the individual in its context” (Robbins et al., 2019, p. 272). In
applying this theory to analysis, the data contradicts this theory in how the students were able to
flourish, thrive, develop, and grow socially, psychologically, and academically even when their
environments were not supportive. If anything, Erikson’s (1968) developmental theory is
specifically used to see how the students’ development varied. The more applicable theory used
in this study is system theory (Robbins et al., (2019) specifically in how the environment affects
the students and the people in their environments.
The Landscape of Mental Health and Well-Being at U.S. Colleges and Universities
According to Kraft (2011), the first student health service is credited to Amherst College
in 1861. Originally clergy and teachers provided counseling services to students. Princeton
University established the first mental health service in 1910 (Kraft, 2011). In 1954, the fourth
National Conference on Health in Colleges “confirmed that only 8% of colleges were using full-
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time or part-time psychiatrists as part of their mental health and counseling services” (Kraft,
2011, p. 478). Kraft (2011) found that multidisciplinary staff, including psychiatrists,
psychologists, and psychiatric social workers to treat students with mental and emotional
problems were often supported through prepaid funding (i.e., supported by the college or
university funds, at no additional financial cost to the students or parents). After World War II,
the GI Bill funded educational expenses for veterans returning to school which led to an increase
in enrollment at colleges, there was similarly an increased need for more mental health
professionals to meet demands for services (Kraft, 2011). The idea to collaborate among
different healthcare providers with different specialties is not a novel idea, it has been applied for
many decades to help college students.
There is a list of professional organizations which employ specialists that work at
different college campuses and “advocate for multidisciplinary mental health and psychological
counseling services” (Kraft, 2011, p. 480). Positive things have been done to address the mental
health needs of college students. However, in 1995 on the 75th anniversary of ACHA Dr.
Arnstein of Yale University reviewed the changes that had “occurred in college mental health
over the previous 30 years emphasizing the prevalence of mental health problems and serious
psychiatric illnesses on campus had not changed” (Kraft, 2011, p. 480). “Although many college
mental health services today are understaffed to meet student demands for service, most colleges
are looking for ways to reduce their fees” (Kraft, 2011, p. 481). In 1995 the concerns were high
regarding tight budgets on college campuses to address the increase of mental health needs of
students. In 2008, Yorgason et al. completed a study and concluded some colleges have strong
programs with excellent resource centers attending to student needs and making them feel
welcomed; however, other colleges and universities are under-resourced. These institutions are
22

not able to meet student needs and when resources exist, could do a more effective job at
educating their students that services are available. More currently, Ramos-Yamamoto and Rose
(2019) report that public university systems in California “have long recognized the need to
provide mental health resources on campus, but have differed in their responses to meet
increasing demand due to budget constraints and other factors. For that reason, students’ access
to mental health services varies depending on the sector and campus.” The other more recent
issue to take into consideration is how the COVID-19 pandemic has also affected how mental
health care services are managed. As Carrasco (2021) discusses,
The COVID-19 pandemic created a greater need for college mental health services as
students struggled with the social and economic consequences of shuttered campuses,
online learning and, in some cases, the illness or death of loved ones. Now, as most
institutions resume more normal in-person operations, they are leaning on telehealth
mental health services to deliver help to students, whether they are on campus or off. (p.
1)
More of the details encompassing this specific situation are discussed in the next two
subsections.
The Impact of the 2020 Pandemic on Well-Being in Postsecondary Institutions
Currently, the treatment of well-being continues to be of great concern, especially with
the increasing numbers of mental illnesses experienced by students in educational institutions
due to the COVID-19 pandemic. To emphasize the need for mental health services, the American
Council on Education is pushing for positive changes on the national administrative level. In
their monthly December 2021 survey, college presidents were presented with a list of 20 issues
and asked to select up to five that they viewed as most pressing. For the seventh time since April
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2020, “mental health of students” was the pressing issue cited most frequently by presidents.
More than two-thirds of all presidents (68%) in the December survey identified student mental
health as a pressing concern, a 5 percentage point decrease from those that chose it in the
November 2021 survey.
Related to mental health concerns and the repercussions of COVID-19 in higher
education settings, as of January 2021, undergraduate enrollment across all types of higher
education institutions was down about 4% from the previous year; a decline that is twice the rate
from the previous Fall 2019 enrollment (Clabaugh et al., 2021). As Clabaugh et al. (2021)
suggest, we cannot state that COVID-19 specifically caused these declines. But considering
everything, many things can be looked at regarding student needs to increase
enrollment. Clabaugh et al., (2021) recommend longitudinal studies to research the impact of
COVID-19 on student populations.
Given the current ongoing pandemic situation, universities in the United States are
measuring well-being by taking into consideration the impact of COVID-19, with surveys with
the following categories by Zacher and Rudolph (2021): “life satisfaction, positive and negative
affect, stress appraisals, and coping strategies” (p. 55). Zacher and Rudolph (2021) concluded
that “psychological practitioners should encourage effective coping strategies” (p. 61). The
findings of these studies are being taken into consideration as this study also looks at how the
students dealt with the COVID-19 situation. According to Twenge (2020) “Adolescents are in
the midst of a mental health crisis in the United States and the cause of this crisis is difficult to
determine, but the rise of digital media is one possibility” (p. 23). The study took Dr. Twenge’s
findings and discussion into consideration as the student interview data was analyzed. What is
most concerning regarding Dr. Twenge’s study is how adolescents are being diagnosed with
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depression and engaging in self-harm and suicide attempts, final recommendations are made in
Chapter Five also taking into consideration Dr. Twenge’s study, specifically, in regard to
resources for treatment; specifically the provision of student support services. The study also
looks at how students coped with the other stressors they had in life as well during their 1st year
of college. In this study, as will be further described, some of the students participate in a
comprehensive college transition program (CCTP) where they get services to meet their
academic needs. The students meet regularly with advisors and they map out what they need, and
the necessary referrals are provided. This study will also review how students are also getting
their mental health needs met by different sources of support.
Post-COVID-19 Student Support Services
Moving forward post-COVID-19, many situations that were not seen before have now
been highlighted. One of them being the well-being and mental health of individuals. As Latoo et
al. (2021) state, “The COVID-19 pandemic has raised the importance of mental health to a much
wider audience, including the public, governments, and policymakers” (Latoo, et al., 2021, p. 3).
Hopefully, with the knowledge of this phenomenon, there will be grander changes made shortly
to provide the additional mental health services which are needed.
As one example, in addition to the traditional supportive services that have been reviewed
with the impact of COVID-19, many campus resources went online. Hu (2020, p. 918)
recommends also having an “equalized technology-mediated advising structure” to support
students in the post-COVID-19 era which emphasizes the importance of:
• creating trust and a sense of belonging,
• establishing a recursive process for students to identify a question, collect
information, connect ideas, and test the viability of solutions,
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• providing the design, facilitation, and direction to support students’ academic
progress and personal growth.
One of the good things that came out of COVID-19 was the technological online adaptability
that schools had to utilize. As Benito et al. (2021) state that
Higher education is now better prepared to accept and include technology as an essential
component of the learning process that can make the learning experience of face-to-face
students more flexible and engaging that can ideally result in broader access and more
effective learning. (p. 69)
There were negative repercussions as well with the increased use of technology and digital
inequity issues also arose regarding how some youth were not able to access these physical
resources to continue with their education (Benito et al., 2021), and educational institutions
attempted to address these needs, but there were still negative outcomes due to these disparities
with the youth falling behind in their education.
The Effects of Well-Being on Postsecondary Student Success
Universities are a place where young adults continue to develop. Students arrive at a
place where they are exposed to expansive opportunities, making major and minor decisions in
their educational and career journeys as they develop professionally. They are also exposed to an
expansive list of instructors, classes, and student support programs to choose from. Students
arrive at the university with different socioeconomic, racial, and ethnic backgrounds. All these
factors could potentially affect their experiences at the university.
Since this study will explore the experiences of BIPOC youth it is important to know the
historical background of oppression and racism in the United States of America and how these
social forces continue to affect students from racialized groups. The next subsection reviews the
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history of disparities in the United States of America and then returns to the main topic of this
study.
Disparities
To understand the root causes of the barriers experienced by BIPOC students historically
in higher education, comparisons can be made from the past to the present day and allow for
future changes. Patton (2016) states, “the present context of racism/White supremacy in higher
education requires acknowledging its violent, imperialistic, and oppressive past” (p. 317).
Unfortunately, more than 400 years later, higher education is still “an overwhelmingly White
terrain in terms of physical representation of White students and symbolically in terms of
curriculum, campus policies, and campus spaces” (Patton, 2016, p. 320). This study takes
history into account during the analysis and final recommendation sections for BIPOC students
specifically regarding what can be done to ensure that they receive the supportive services they
need to thrive in a higher educational setting.
Children and adolescents are affected at young ages and the impacts of systemic
oppression continue into their adult lives. By the time these children reach college, they have
either grown up in cities where they had resources to meet their academic and psychological
needs or not (DiPlacito, 2016). When these students transition into college settings, they might
continue to use resources that helped them in their younger years or continue to survive their
college experience without resources. Some find out currently in their lives that they need
resources and access to college resources. Others, as will be reviewed in this study, do not access
the college resources that could help them thrive as individuals. And others will access these
supportive resources and hopefully have a positive college experience. The positive youth
development movement, as discussed earlier in this chapter, is a social justice response to the
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oppression that sometimes continues to plague college students (Lerner, 2021). Oppression at the
college level includes students not accessing the resources that could help them thrive in their
college experiences. There are different barriers students of color may encounter, including
microaggressions, racism, and sexism on college campuses that add to the stressors they need to
deal with as they decide to continue on their college journey (Kelly et al., 2021).
Other factors that can also influence students is whether or not they came from high
schools that were well funded with a wealth of resources versus coming from high schools in
poor communities with very low funding (Masumoto & Brown-Welty, 2009). When a high
school has a wealth of resources, with more funding, more staff, and more counselors to provide
services to students, student needs are better attended to. When a high school with a scarcity of
resources of funding and resources has thousands of students with very few counselors, student
needs are too vast to be taken care of; consequently, these students end up falling through the
cracks sometimes without the services they need to thrive medically, academically,
psychologically, and socially.
Those within the higher educational realm must understand that not only are more
students of color entering college campuses, their financial status may have impacted their ability
to attain adequate educational support. It is imperative to acknowledge how economic as well as
social inequities contribute to systemic problems for students before they are even considering
higher education as a way to create lasting equitable change (Massey et al., 2014, p. 175). It is
very unfortunate that this concept of dropping out of school at a young age and normalizing
underachievement amongst students of color is still existing in 2020 (Massey et al., 2014, p.
176). Educational leaders have to address the fact racial inequities are present due to having
racist structures run schools-not addressing a solution to students dropping out or normalizing
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failure is actively taking away from students having the opportunity to gain access to scholarship
(Massey et al., 2016, p. 176).
Interestingly, while the marginalized students are the majority in special education
programs, the gifted and talented education programs are overwhelming with Whites. Looking
closely, both programs have the similar referral processes where teachers play a vital role in
identifying and referring students to the program. This referral method could be problematic
because over 80% of teachers in this country are White (Love, 2019, p. 123). Perkins-Gough
(2002) also points out that “racial disparities include low expectations, cultural insensitivity, and
misunderstanding of African American males” is one of the causes of inequality in special
education (p. 91). Racism and low expectation play out in the way that many White teachers
label Black and Latino students who act out in the classroom as “emotional disturbance” rather
than “emotionally traumatized” according to Dr. Arun Ramanathan (2020). These diagnoses are
pretexts for the students to be directed away from opportunities to get into higher education.
Students diagnosed with “emotional disturbance” and similar behavioral “disorders” are
dramatically less likely to get into the higher education system and dramatically more likely to
go to prison (Sojoyner, 2013). We can infer here that this is one of the reasons BIPOC children
witnessing this system become distrustful of it. Unlike in the K –12 disability referral/diagnosis
process, self-referral is the primary method in receiving disability services at the college level.
Therefore, many emotionally traumatized students who are misdiagnosed as “emotional
disturbance,” and more often those who witnessed the impact of these diagnoses on their peers,
are disincentivized from seeking disability services in adulthood.
In light of psychiatric disabilities and mental health issues, there is an increasing trend of
college students seeking mental healthcare support. According to DeAngelis (2019) the number
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of college students receiving mental health treatment rose almost 80% during 2007 –2017. It
seems that non-Whites do not seek mental health treatment as often as their White peers (Brown,
2020). While many Black students’ mental health is impacted by racial microaggression, PTSD
or childhood trauma, many do not seek treatment because of the belief in “grit” and “resilience’’
(McGee, 2015). Additionally, White clinicians, especially White women are dramatically
overrepresented in the psychology field (Castillo et al., 2013); therefore, a lack of minority
representation of people working in mental health services, or a lack of cultural literacy amongst
providers, presents another reason for students of color to be resistant to seeking mental health
care. Furthermore, the lack of clients’ race and multi-ethical concerns in physiological treatment
might be barriers to building trust with minority students in receiving treatment (Howitt &
Owusu-Bempah, 1994).
This study will specifically be looking at students and what contributes to their well-
being and thriving. As cited in McCrae et al. (2000), certain individuals in a college student’s life
can contribute to their thriving, “psychologists, educators, and parents will have relatively little
impact on the long-term development of personality traits, but they can influence characteristic
adaptations” (p. 184). This study looks at the impact the support educators, parents, counselors,
and mentors make on a college student’s sense of well-being; more specifically, these individuals
are known as Stanton-Salazar’s (2011) “empowerment agents” and their impact will be analyzed
regarding how their support contributes to college student well-being and thriving. Stanton-
Salazar’s empowerment agents are able to take into consideration the oppression sometimes
affecting minoritized youth and are able to help them transform despite the barriers they might
encounter systemically and systematically. It is also important to take into consideration what
McCrae et al., (2000) state that, “traits can be channeled even if they cannot be changed” (p.
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184). Consequently, the question that arises here is whether individuals are born with rigid
personality traits that cannot be changed or can change occur if it is nurtured by positive
environments and individuals. And it is very complex to see what can nurture traits that will help
college students thrive. In Chapter Five, I suggest recommendations taking into consideration
what helps students thrive based on what was observed in the study data and analysis. As will be
presented in later chapters some students are better at navigating their college sources of support
better than others and are more developed in their coping skills and relationship management
skills. Specific recommendations will be given taking into consideration the complexities of the
development of college students.
Approaches to Supporting the Well-Being of At-Promise College Students
There are many strategies students can use to help them navigate their well-being during
their college experiences. This section will review different techniques and approaches available
to students including internal strengths students can tap into and external resources at university
campuses and in the students’ communities that are also conducive to providing support for
wellness.
Coping Strategies
College students use healthy and unhealthy coping strategies to manage the stress they
experience. Healthy strategies include talking to family and friends, leisure activities, exercise,
and talking to a professional (Pierceall & Keim, 2007). College students employ a variety of
coping strategies to get help for themselves during stressful times. Some unhealthy strategies
college students have also been found to use during stressful times include drinking alcohol,
smoking, and using illegal drugs (Pierceall & Keim, 2007). Son et al. (2020) also found that
during the COVID-19 pandemic students indicated “difficulty in concentrating on academic
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work due to various sources of distraction like social media, internet, and video games and that
online classes were subject to distraction due to lack of interactions” (p. 8). As illustrated
students coped with their situations with different coping skills. This study will focus on healthy
coping strategies for college students and how their use can be encouraged.
People Who Provide Support in Higher Education Institutions
College campuses are potentially a place where students learn how to manage and cope
with some life difficulties. For example, “Colleges provide a unique opportunity to identify,
prevent, or treat mental health disorders because campuses often encompass students’ residences,
social networks, and many services” (Eisenberg et al., 2009, p. 523). When college students
begin their educational, social, and professional experiences on these campuses they come across
advisors and faculty that potentially can have a negative or positive impact on their mental
health. College students potentially have access to many individuals that can help them with
whatever struggles they might have. Hyuan et al., (2006) found that “for students in distress,
contact with sympathetic administrative staff and faculty advisors who are willing to direct them
to appropriate services is critical” (p. 262). In addition to specific people on college campuses,
“student support services come in a variety of forms that include academic advising, personal
counseling, computer access, priority registration, peer mentoring, faculty mentoring, college
success seminars, tutoring, and supplemental instruction” (Grant-Vallone et al, 2003, p.
271). Services available through student support can potentially provide the student with relief
from whatever difficulty they might be facing at the time.
There are also student programs such as the Educational Opportunity Program, the
Academic Support Program for Intellectual Rewards and Enhancement, and the Faculty Mentor
Program, which help students “develop a strong academic foundation while growing personally
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through acknowledging and recognizing their resiliency, scholastic abilities, and leadership
skills” (Grant-Vallone et al., 2003, p. 271). Many of these programs are already in place helping
students across the United States of America, although not in all postsecondary
institutions. Another one is academic advising, in a study by Swecker et al. (2013) “the data
suggest that for every meeting with an advisor the odds that a student is retained increases by
13%” (p. 49). All of these programs can have very meaningful results for the college as it retains
its students and for the individual students as they become “empowered and motivated to become
advocates and leaders through participation in on-campus activities and organizations” (Grant-
Vallone et al., 2003, p. 271).
Empowerment Agents
Stanton-Salazar (2011) discusses how the concept of institutional agents, specifically,
“high-status, non-kin, agents who occupy relatively high positions in the multiple dimensional
stratification system, who are well positioned to provide key forms of social and institutional
support” (p. 1066) turn into an empowerment agent, someone who “provide low-status youth
with highly valued institutional resources, in terms of their commitment to empowering youth
with a critical consciousness, and with the means to transform themselves, their communities,
and society as a whole” (p. 1068). Stanton-Salazar (2011) reviews how an institutional agent can
represent an institution, like a university for example, and provide students with academically,
financially, and professionally helpful resources, opportunities, services, and connections.
However, Stanton-Salazar (2011) reviews how empowerment agents take these types of jobs to
another level and become someone who helps transform the youth with a caring “critical
consciousness” by going over and beyond what entails their job title; specifically, these
empowerment agents take into consideration the needs of the youth and go out of their way to
33

form professional relationships with them in their sometimes vulnerable positions to help them
with practical things like helping them complete applications for different organizations that will
help them financially or professionally and also advocating for them in their communities to rise
above any oppression they might be encountering (Stanton-Salazar, 2011). Stanton-Salazar
(2011) discusses what empowerment agents do at an in-depth level psychologically and
sociologically helping the youth transform even if they are oppressed. This explanation of
empowerment agents is important because the students interviewed showed who the
empowerment agents were in their lives and the reader of this study needs to fully understand the
complexity and power of these student-staff relationships.
Safe Spaces
Additional strategies HEIs can implement are the creation of actual “safe spaces” (Ali,
2017) for students to be able to develop fully at all levels. Ali (2017) defines a “safe space” as a
“sheltered, homogeneous space where students feel comfortable expressing themselves. It is a
place of honest dialogue and learning designed to promote inclusivity” (p. 3). Certain programs
can take the safe space concept and use it to help students feel like they belong on their college
campuses; specifically, this implementation can contribute to the positive development of
students psychologically and as professional students. Culver et al. (2021) discuss the importance
of college campuses creating safe spaces that help students feel validated.
Summary
Postsecondary students are at a time in their lives where they are learning, developing,
and balancing their academic, social, financial, and psychological areas of life and sometimes
they might run into stressful situations because they might not be prepared with enough skills to
be able to successfully manage the situations that might arise during this time. This study will
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look at 10 BIPOC college students in three midwestern universities in the United States of
America, specifically managing these areas in their lives during their 1st year of college. The
findings show some BIPOC students thriving socially, academically, and psychologically and
how others struggle to improve these areas in their lives. The findings show how some BIPOC
students are successful at accessing the supportive sources of support located internally and
externally and how others have additional barriers to fight through as they continue on their
college journey. The stories of these 10 BIPOC college students bring to light what existing
research has discussed for decades and highlights even more nuances to the complex
development of skills to be able to thrive psychologically, academically, and socially. University
life can exacerbate stress and social isolation. At the same time, college campuses can be a place
of positive development for students. Sources of support for students already exist on many
college campuses and inside communities (Kezar et al., 2021). For different reasons, these
sources of support are often not activated thoroughly, maybe due to barriers to accessing these
sources of support internally and externally for college students as discussed in this literature
review. Again, this study will specifically be looking at these internal and external student
support factors, how students access them, and how they contribute to their well-being.

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Chapter Three: Methodology
This chapter presents an overview of the methodology and research methods employed to
understand the following questions:
1. How do at-promise students at three midwestern universities navigate their well
being during their 1st-year transition to college and what conditions facilitate their
well-being?
2. What barriers do at-promise students face in experiencing well-being?
The study focuses on how low-income and BIPOC students experience well-being, including the
conditions that facilitate their well-being. This study was designed to understand the specific
elements of student experiences that are perceived to foster a supportive experience for low-
income and BIPOC students. The main theory guiding this inquiry is positive youth movement
(PYM) with a particular focus on the 6 Cs that help students thrive: competence, confidence,
character, connection, commitment, and caring (Eccles & Gootman, 2002; Lerner et al., 2005,
Roth & Brooks-Gunn, 2003). The other foundational theories that help with the analysis of the
data are the biopsychosocial systems theory (Robbins et al., 2019) which uses the same concept
of the person in the environment, as Lerner et al., (2005) and Erikson’s psychosocial
development theory (Erikson, 1968). This chapter will cover the rationale for the design, site,
and selection of participants, as well as how the data were analyzed. The chapter ends with my
positionality statement.
As Merriam and Tisdell (2016) state, “the overall purposes of qualitative research are to
achieve an understanding of how people make sense out of their lives, delineate the process
(rather than the outcome or product) of meaning-making, and describe how people interpret what
they experience” (p. 15). A qualitative methodology is helpful to explore how interactions with a
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wide range of individuals (i.e. faculty, staff, peers, and family) influence the well-being of low-
income, BIPOC students. Using this qualitative research method can allow researchers to
understand how students are experiencing their college environment. In addition, qualitative
research uses an inductive approach meaning that “you move from a specific to a broader
understanding starting with what you observed and working toward more abstract theoretical
understandings that may be informed by the theoretical perspective you ultimately select”
(Lochmiller & Lester, 2017, p. 99). The inductive approach is a flexible process, informed by a
literature review with information from studies that have already been conducted. With the
interview process and other qualitative data-gathering techniques, data are collected and
converted into formats that can be coded. Researchers see if any repetitive patterns emerge
giving rise to explanations for behavior, and ultimately giving rise to interventions to help these
groups of individuals in the future (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). As cited in Lochmiller and Lester
(2017) “with qualitative research grounded in inductive thinking, many qualitative researchers
collect and analyze their data concurrently, making discoveries along the way” (p. 99). I engaged
in a similar process with other researchers in an effort to remain flexible and open-minded as we
tried to better understand the college student experience.
Research Design
This study is designed as a qualitative exploratory interview study. As Merriam and
Tisdell (2016) discuss, this type of method is “employed when little is known about a particular
population or subject, and the qualitative data are used to explore and define the topic” (p.
47). Lochmiller and Lester (2017) state that “qualitative research focuses on the human
experience as it occurs in social life and often seeks to make sense of the social practices” (p.
93). They further state, “qualitative researchers are very careful about the data they include in
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their studies because the ultimate goal is to collect data that are aligned with a given
methodology and your research focus, ultimately leading to a rich understanding of the
phenomenon of interest” (p. 100). With qualitative research, data collected contribute to the
researchers’ understanding of the phenomenon being studied (Merriam and Tisdell, 2016). One
aim of this study is to gain a deeper understanding of the BIPOC college student well-being
experience. And as Lochmiller and Lester (2017) discuss one way to perform qualitative research
is through the specific method of interviewing. This study aims to understand college student
well-being experiences using qualitative interviews.
Data
Data for this study are drawn from a broader research project, which is a longitudinal
mixed-methods study situated at three midwestern American universities (See
pass.pullias.usc.edu for more information). The broader study examines the experiences of at-
promise students as they navigate higher education and seeks to understand how practitioners
and institutions effectively support these populations (Kezar et al., 2020, Kitchen et al., 2021;
Melguizo et al., 2021). The current 5-year study builds upon a prior 6-year mixed-methods study
that focused on understanding how a comprehensive college support program affected students’
psychosocial and academic outcomes. A key aim of both studies included partnering with
practitioners to determine what practices are needed to support student success and equity.
Data from the three campuses were gathered through observations, surveys, and
interviews with students and practitioners. Approximately 50% of students participated in a
comprehensive college transition program (CCTP) on each campus. While this study focuses on
interview data, it is worth mentioning the other types of data collected as the larger research team
often discusses how different types of data relate to each other, thus offering an opportunity for
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methods and data triangulation (Flick, 2007). With regards to data collection for the larger study,
researchers worked closely with the three campuses to administer pre and post-test surveys and
interval surveys to students who met study criteria, a process facilitated with the support of the
university’s institutional research office, to learn about how students’ academic and psychosocial
outcomes changed over time. Qualitative interviews with students enabled researchers to gain a
more nuanced sense of how students experience campus life. Interviews with CCTP practitioners
provided additional insights into how practitioners are making use of findings and responding to
change efforts.
This specific dissertation draws data from the project’s qualitative dataset. The sample
includes a group of students participating in the CCTP and a non-CCTP group, thereby creating
an informal reference group to examine key nuances in how the CCTP can support students. The
study started in the Fall of 2021 and will continue through the summer of 2024; this study draws
from data collected between the Fall of 2021 and the Fall of 2022.
Site Selection
The study takes place at three midwestern U.S. university campuses. One campus is a
metropolitan university that serves approximately 12,000 undergraduate students who are
racially, ethnically, and linguistically diverse. Another campus is a university located in a rural
area that serves approximately 4,000 undergraduate students. The third campus is a research-
oriented land grant university located in the state capital and a member of the Big Ten
Conference that serves approximately 20,000 undergraduate students. The varying types of
universities included in the study allow researchers to identify common themes that may be
transferable to a wide range of 4-year institutions.
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The broad study also includes an examination of CCTPs on each campus. Each CCTP
serves between 200 and 600 at-promise students during their first 2 years of college with
approximately 2,700 students (including those in their 3rd year and beyond) served across the
three campuses each year. Being a first-generation college student is not required for
participation, although many of the students do identify as first-generation. Students in the
program receive a scholarship that approximately covers the cost of tuition and fees during their
time at the institution (Kezar et al., 2022). All the students come from low-income backgrounds
with an expected family contribution (EFC) of $10,000 or less. The open application process, as
well as the relatively large financial investment available through the private foundation to
support the program, means that a diverse group of low-income students is included in the
program (Lee, 2020). Over 60% of the students are the first in their families to attend college;
and, many identify as racially minoritized (first university, 66%; second university, 36%; third
university, 29%). The overall purpose of the CCTP is to facilitate a successful college transition
and promote a pathway to college completion (Swanson & Cole, 2021). Over the course of the 2-
year program, CCTP students participate in a range of academic, social, career development, and
community service activities. The CCTP consists of several classroom and out-of-classroom
components that support the success of students in the program via staff, peers, faculty members,
and other support staff. The CCTP program seeks to maintain a high frequency of faculty-student
interactions via the classroom and programming events throughout the year (Melguizo et al.,
2021). This study’s sample includes students participating in the CCTP program as well as at-
promise students who do not have access to the CCTP program but may participate in alternative
campus programs.
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Participants
According to Merriam and Tisdell (2016), “purposeful sampling is based on the
assumption that the investigator wants to discover, understand, and gain insight and therefore
must select a sample from which the most can be learned” (p. 96). Accordingly, a purposeful
sampling strategy was chosen to recruit and select participants for the larger study and was
utilized for this dissertation study as well. The data source I drew upon is a subset of students
from the three midwestern university campuses in the United States of America who identify as
BIPOC. Each site had its unique characteristics making the experiences at each campus different
and distinguished from the others.
This study’s sample was drawn from a larger sample of students who had been
interviewed by team of researchers involved with the PASS project. The students in this study’s
sample were purposefully selected by researchers due to having compelling stories related to
well-being or thriving. Participants were selected with the following characteristics: low-income,
first-generation, and BIPOC. I analyzed the full data corpus of interviews from these 10
purposefully selected students to learn about how they experience well-being over the course of
their 1st year in college. The student interview data were de-identified, uploaded onto Dedoose
(a qualitative data analysis tool), and reviewed for analytic purposes.
Data Collection Procedures
Preparation to Enter the Field
Selecting and recruiting interview participants involved an intentional process that was
informed by the analysis of quantitative data. Researchers reviewed and discussed early
quantitative student surveys and short answer responses and met to identify which students to
invite for the interviews. Students were recruited to participate in interviews and if they opted in,
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research team members administered consent to each participant. Student protocols were
developed, reviewed, and finalized collaboratively (please refer to Appendixes A, B, and C for
the interview protocols given to the students in Fall 2021, Spring 2022, and Summer 2022).
Data Collection
During the 2021–2022 school year, the research team completed 79 student semi-
structured interviews with 49 participants. The interview process aimed to understand how
students are experiencing support during their university experiences. This approach aligns with
Maxwell’s (2013) description of the purpose of the interview questioning. Interviews were
conducted in one-on-one settings through Zoom recorded meetings. According to Merriam and
Tisdell (2016) “most of the interview is guided by a list of questions or issues to be explored” (p.
110). The specific questions or issues to be explored in this study are the experiences of at-
promise, BIPOC students at the three university campuses. All student interview data were
transcribed by a professional transcription service. After the initial interviews, all the students
were invited to participate in longitudinal interviews (please refer to Appendixes A, B, and C, for
the interview protocols given to the students for Fall 2021, Spring 2022, and Summer 2022). The
data for this study derived from longitudinal interviews; specifically, a full set of transcripts were
collected by researchers from the 10 purposefully selected students.
Interview data were first uploaded into a highly secure database, de-identified, and then
uploaded into Dedoose, an online qualitative data analytic tool so that the research team could
engage in collectively coding data on a cloud-based platform. The research team has a variety of
procedures in place to ensure the anonymity of participants and to maintain data security, thus
fostering an ethical treatment of data (Lochmiller & Lester, 2017). For this dissertation, a set of
data was uploaded into a unique Dedoose project for analysis.
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Data Analysis
To analyze data, I developed a code list through a process involving first and second-
round coding (Saldaña, 2008). Saldaña (2008) states that “to codify is to arrange things in a
systematic order, to make something part of a system or classification, to categorize” (p.
8). When first-round coding was completed, student interviews were analyzed related to
constructs in Dedoose. Second-round coding was also done because as Saldaña (2008) further
states, “recoding can occur with a more attuned perspective using First Cycle methods again,
while Second Cycle methods describe those processes that might be employed during the second
and third and possibly fourth review of data” (p. 8). This will bring more meaning to the student
experiences being observed. According to Saldaña (2008),
this second cycle (and possibly the third and fourth, and so on) of recoding further
manages, filters, highlights, and focuses the salient features of the qualitative data record
for generating categories, themes, and concepts, grasping the meaning, and/or building
theory. (p. 8)
This process is fundamental to bringing a clearer message of understanding at a deeper level of
the wellness experiences of BIPOC college students.
In addition, Lochmiller and Lester (2017) review how to move from codes to categories
and categories to themes: “Qualitative data analysis involves moving from individual statements
to interpretations that are more abstract but directly related to or address your research questions”
(p. 176). This analytic method was used to make meaning out of the participants’ experiences. A
thematic statement was created capturing both the codes and categories and being brought under
a single, understandable umbrella aligned with my research question. Data excerpts from student
interviews were coded based on their experiences and based on the themes that arose, and
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categories were created accordingly. This analytic process is designed to provide a deeper
understanding of students’ psychological well-being. Themes were created in two rounds
finalizing and focusing on the most frequently discussed themes which included external
supportive factors for students like family and institutional agents and the internal supportive
factors they were using to navigate their 1st year of college; for example, coping skills and
relationship management skills.
Trustworthiness
Lochmiller and Lester (2017) define trustworthiness, as “the degree to which data
collection, analysis, and presentation of findings are presented in a thorough and verifiable
manner” (p. 180). Another way to look at trustworthiness in qualitative research is related to
reliability, according to Merriam and Tisdell (2016) “strategies to ensure reliability are
triangulation, peer examination, investigator’s position, and the audit trail” (p. 252). As Merriam
and Tisdell (2016) also state, “It is incumbent upon the critical researcher to be reflexive: to
consider issues such as positionality and insider/outside stances in research and to try to own
their effects in the process in so far as this is possible” (p. 65). In the following sections, I review
specific methods to ensure trustworthiness in the larger study and my research.
Consent to Participate
One way that trustworthiness was maintained in this study was by requiring fully
informed consent of the participants. The consent process is ongoing and dynamic, as the study
proceeds the researcher informs the participant of the information that is needed for them to be
fully informed about the interview process, its limitations, and the rights they have to exercise to
preserve their anonymity and well-being (Lincoln & Guba, 1985a, p. 80). This practice was
observed when consenting students and related stakeholders to participate in the study.
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Engaged Time in the Field
As Lochmiller and Lester (2017) state “engaged time in the field can establish
trustworthiness in qualitative research” (p. 180). The research team was intentional about
building relationships with university programs and practitioners who helped them learn about
the context of the study. Students were interviewed two to three times during the school
year. This longitudinal engagement enabled researchers to facilitate a connection with students
and build trustworthiness because as Lochmiller and Lester (2017) discuss, “the practitioner-
scholar spent time collecting data, interacting with its research participants, and became familiar
with the research site/context” (p. 180).
Peer Debriefing
Furthermore, another trustworthiness technique that was utilized throughout the research
study involved researchers checking in with each other and providing each other with regular
feedback on all facets of the research process. I reviewed my research findings with my
dissertation supervisor and colleagues regularly to be fully aware of the dynamics of power and
positionality that take place. This process is defined as “peer debriefing: the process of a
practitioner-scholar working with a colleague(s) who is a critical friend of the research study and
willing to ask questions related to their process, biases, and next steps” (Lochmiller & Lester,
2017, p. 180). Monthly meetings were also held to review themes and outcomes of current
findings. A biannual work retreat was also held to do more thorough collaborative analyses and
planning.
Awareness of Biases
As a researcher, I have learned to be careful regarding how I approach the data to
authentically represent participants’ experiences and voices accurately. Another way to ensure
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trustworthiness on a professional level is that I have been trained to approach certain
ethnicities/races with certain cultural traditions or ways of managing certain
situations. Depending on what ethnicity/race my participants are, I might approach their recorded
perspectives with assumptions, thinking already that they are a certain way. Impeded by my
biases I might miss fully understanding what their experiences mean. If I do not get to
understand these college students’ experiences then the purpose of this qualitative study is in
vain because since this is a qualitative study, its purpose is to understand the experiences of these
students. I strove to make sure I was aware of my potential biases when analyzing and
interpreting findings.
I acknowledge that my findings can be influenced by different factors. I reviewed a
sensitive topic and participants might be hesitant to be completely open about their
opinions. Merriam and Tisdell (2016) further state,
Rather than trying to eliminate these biases or “subjectivities,” it is important to identify
them and monitor them in the theoretical framework in light of the researcher’s interests,
to make clear how they may be shaping the collection and interpretation of data. (p. 16)
In applying this suggestion, I first identified my biases or subjectivities and monitored them
about the theoretical framework I am using. Specifically, for this study, my interests are to help
students and approach them with an anti-deficit lens to see what assets they bring to their
postsecondary journeys (Davis & Museus, 2019). In addition, I consulted with my supervisor and
colleagues at all stages of the research project to ensure I am accountable for any biases.
Triangulation
Another key method to increase the trustworthiness of this study is triangulation.
According to Denzin (1970),
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Triangulation helps raise sociologists above personalistic biases that stem from
single methodologies and by combining methods and investigators in the same
study, observers can partially overcome the deficiencies that flow from one
investigator and/or method. Triangulation of method, investigator, theory, and
data remains the soundest strategy of theory construction. (p. 300)
By utilizing data and investigator triangulation, I will aim to produce high-quality and sound
research. In addition, according to Flick (2007), “the major link between triangulation and
quality of qualitative research is that triangulation means extending the activities of the
researcher in the process beyond what is ‘normally’ done, for example, by using more than one
method” (p. 37). Triangulation is practiced in this study by using more than one data source.
Data were collected from students in various locations and at different points in time, which
increases trustworthiness (Denzin, 1970). Researchers were able to see student experiences at
three points in time. The other ways triangulation is practiced in this study is by using multiple
theories to analyze the emerging findings; specifically, I used Erikson’s development theory
(Erikson, 1968) and the thriving concept which was also based on the person in the environment
theory (Lerner, 2021). The positive youth development theory (Lerner, 2021) focused on
students’ internal qualities that were also analyzed using Erikson’s developmental theory
(Erikson, 1968). Another foundational theory to strengthen triangulation which was also used in
analyzing the data was a biopsychosocial approach with systems theory (Robbins et al., 2019). I
checked emerging findings against actual well-being data on college campuses and journal
articles that have already been written about studying this phenomenon.
Role of the Researcher
As Merriam and Tisdell (2016) state,
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in the critical sense of qualitative research-and if one is serious about challenging power
relations both in the world and in the research process itself-it is incumbent upon the
critical researcher to be reflexive: to consider issues such as positionality and
insider/outsider stances in research and to try to own their effects in the process in so far
as this is possible. (pp. 64–65).
Drawing upon Villaverde’s (2008) definition of positionality as “how one is situated through the
intersection of power and the politics of gender, race, class, sexuality, ethnicity, culture,
language, and other social factors” (p. 10), according to Cochran-Smith (1995), educators must
comprehend their identity, “this kind of examination inevitably begins with our histories as
human beings and as educators; our own experiences as members of particular races, classes, and
genders; and as children, parents, and teachers in the world” (p. 500).
With these concepts in mind, I have reflected on my positionality. I am a middle-class
Salvadorian American heterosexual female who speaks Spanish and English and an adjunct
instructor at the University of Southern California Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social
Work. I am a licensed clinical social worker and I have provided mental health services to
children and advocated for their specialized needs. Taking this into consideration, my identity is
a consequence of my experiences and these experiences assist the children I treat and the
students I teach. In certain categories I hold a position of privilege and in others a disadvantaged
position; for example, being a Hispanic middle-class female, I have to take into consideration my
identity as I teach others to make sure I have a culturally sensitive and inclusive approach in
creating a safe learning environment.
Furthermore, I teach students how to provide treatment for their clients and how to
support them in different settings; this specifically relates to this study and its focus on what
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helps students thrive in college settings. In my analysis of the findings, I sought to learn more
about the approaches and programmatic elements that best support students. Observing the
outcomes of this study is a valuable learning experience for me as I am seeing firsthand what I
can put into practice for my present students to facilitate valuable learning experiences.
The power dynamics of the university settings I am studying are very structured. I am a
researcher, an adjunct instructor, and a licensed clinical social worker and I will be reviewing
and discussing existing data. I am perceived to be in a position of power as an adjunct instructor.
Race, class, gender, and other identifying characteristics will differ between the participants and
me. I approach this work with a grounding in critical race theory and apply an anti-deficit lens. I
have an interest to help students succeed in college; for example, originally, I approached
students focusing on their needs, but now I can approach them by supporting their strengths.
Conclusion
This chapter summarized the specific methodology and pertinent components of the
research design and methods, such as the description of the participants, data collection methods,
and procedures for analysis. Chapter Four will delve into the specific data and findings of the
research. Chapter Five will continue the discussion of the findings and outline the implications of
the study for practitioners in the field and suggest ways that college campuses might increase
their effectiveness in working with low-income BIPOC students. I conclude by discussing
recommendations for future research.
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Chapter Four: Findings
This study focuses on the different sources of psychological and academic support that
helped 10 BIPOC-identifying college students at three midwestern universities in the United
States of America and how they experience well-being. Sources of support can be located
internally and externally; for example, according to the positive youth development theory, there
are six Cs that students can foster internally to thrive: competence, confidence, character,
connection, commitment, and caring (Lerner, 2021). And according to Stanton-Salazar, there are
empowerment agents (EAs) that are external sources of support, like college advisors and
instructors that can help students by empowering them (Stanton-Salazar, 2011). The study
participants include low-income Black and Indigenous people of color (BIPOC) students who
participated in a larger study of at-promise student success conducted at three midwestern
university campuses in the United States of America. Data for this study derive from interviews
with students conducted during the 2021–2022 school year. This study is designed as a
qualitative exploratory interview study. This study attempts to explore the following research
questions:
1. How do at-promise students at three midwestern universities navigate their well-being
during their 1st-year transition to college and what conditions facilitate at-promise
students’ well-being?
2. What barriers do at-promise students face in experiencing well-being?
This chapter outlines the study findings and is organized into distinct sections. I begin with a
summary of the research participants and a section addressing challenges to well-being. Then I
discuss internal and external factors that influence positive well-being in students. The final
sections discuss the process of cultivating internal supportive factors, the impact of external
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supportive factors, and the process of cultivating internal supportive factors. These final sections
take into consideration how internal and external factors contribute to a student’s well-being
status. Chapter Five includes further discussion of the findings, implications for practice, and
recommendations for future research.
Research questions were created to develop a deeper understanding of BIPOC students at
three midwestern universities navigating their well-being during their 1st-year transition to
college. In exploring the first research question, I analyzed interview data for their individual
level, holistic insights about the sample’s well-being, and college experiences. A key theme that
arose was how students were able to utilize their internal supportive factors as they navigated
their 1st year of college. Internal supportive factors that were observed to help students in their
experiences were the ability to be self-aware of their feelings and thoughts and the emotional
intelligence to make wise decisions that helped improve their psychological, social, and
academic situations. Other internal supportive factors that were observed to help students in their
1st year of college were what motivated them to succeed, for example, their family or their
personal ambition. Some other internal supportive factors that were also observed in the students
were their coping skills and their relationship management skills. It was also observed that for
some students, their internal supportive factors were more developed than others; for example,
some students had longer lists of coping skills that they were able to access and activate when
they were going through difficulties during their 1st year of college. It was also noted that some
students had more developed management skills that were also activated when needed to help
improve their social and academic situations. All of these internal supportive student factors are
important to consider in students because as reviewed by Schunk (2020) motivation, emotions,
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studying skills, and asking for help when there is a lack of understanding can all have an impact
on each other.
The second part of research question #1 identifies specific programmatic, institutional,
and relational elements that students interacted with that they perceive to be supportive. In
analyzing students’ collective shared experiences, key themes emerged as perceived external
supportive factors for students. Social relationships appear to play a major role in promoting
BIPOC students’ well-being, including those with empowerment agents (EAs) either at their
high schools, in their Comprehensive College Transition Program (CCTP), scholarship
programs, college advisors, instructors, or mentors. As reviewed in the literature Chapter 2, these
EAs can be very supportive of students, empowering them during their educational experiences
(Stanton-Salazar, 2011). Another external supportive factor for students was their family support.
The second research question identifies the different barriers that the students had overcome or
were overcoming. Below I explore the internal skills students used to overcome their challenges
and the external supports that were most helpful to them.
In this section, I provide the demographic characteristics of the students while also
maintaining a high level of confidentiality to protect students’ identities. These demographic
characteristics assist in giving context to the students’ complex experiences during their 1st year
of college. Students have unique stories to tell regarding what they perceive as supportive
external factors and internal supportive factors. Students’ voices will provide insight into their
life experiences and in many cases, highlight stories of strength.
The findings are intended to inform the larger student and the field of higher education
and provide a summary of the experiences students are having with certain themes highlighted.
The data source I will draw upon is a subset of 10 students from three midwestern universities in
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the United States of America. The demographics of the larger study’s student interview sample
included some first-generation student status, some CCTP participants, some students living on
campus and others living at home or in outside housing, different sexual orientations, male and
female genders, BIPOC ethnicities/races, and a variety of declaration of majors. The data shared
below reflect perspectives from 10 purposefully selected students who identify as BIPOC and are
offered to illustrate how they experience well-being over the course of their 1st year in college.
Participant Characteristics
Due to the critical need to maintain the anonymity of research participants, I share
student characteristics in composite form. Of the 10 students included in this study, four
participants identified as Black, five students identified as Hispanic, and one identified as
biracial. Five students identified as female, three students identified as male, one student
identified specifically as an LGBTQ man, and one student identified as a non-binary gender.
Three students identified as having an immigrant background but not being first-generation
students. Three students identified as not being first-generation students. Four students identified
as first-generation students. Four students had a GPA above 3.0 upon entering college and six
students did not have a GPA above 3.0 upon entering college. Upon starting university, nine
students had declared their majors and one student had not declared their major. Nine students
were Pell Grant eligible; one student was not Pell Grant eligible. Seven students did not
participate in the CCTP described in previous chapters, and three students did.
Before discussing key findings related to the internal factors influencing BIPOC students’
well-being and the external elements that inhibited or facilitated their well-being, I share a
composite overview of the internal and external supportive factors of the study participants to
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illustrate the diversity of the sample. These next sections also show how much the students
varied significantly regarding their external and internal supportive factors.
External Supportive Factors
External supportive factors that made some students feel connected on campus included
their job working with people at the university and student association. Other external supportive
factors observed were institutional empowerment agents, family members, peers, and welcoming
campus environments with safe positive physical spaces like libraries, dorm buildings, rooms
associated with student and scholarship organizations, and gyms. Another source of support
observed for students was the student mental health counseling center. An additional source of
support was academic and professional groups that students attended regularly for psychological
and academic support. Some students were not only supported by external factors and greatly
benefited from them but at the end of their 1st year of college also became empowerment agents
empowering other students and providing them with the resources to meet their needs. It was
observed how a student could greatly transform.
Internal Supportive Factors
There are certain internal supportive factors that students displayed during their
interviews. What was observed was that student confidence increased during the 1st year of
college from learning and practicing through difficult and new experiences in the 1st year of
college. Other internal supportive factors observed were, for example, having wisdom, a strong
positive mentality, social awareness, proactivity, strong spiritual practices, and
assertiveness. Additional internal supportive factors that were activated and accessed during
difficult times in the 1st year of college were coping and self-management skills. Some students
had longer lists of coping skills that they were able to activate socially, physically, and
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psychologically. Some students were more seasoned and experienced in activating and accessing
their coping skills. More specific examples of internal supportive factors that were utilized by
students were their high sense of self-awareness, being mindful of their needs, and activating
self-care strategies to get their needs met. Other internal supportive factors observed in students
were their study skills and time management skills.
Student Stressors
Other themes that were observed in the analysis were the stressors students were
experiencing which are discussed in more detail later in this chapter. Some students had to deal
with medical conditions. One student dealt with racial tensions. Some students did not feel
comfortable on campus being queer. Some students went through the experience of getting low
grades and having to learn what would help them academically. One student decided to go to
different colleges closer to their family, friends, and supportive institutional empowerment
agents. One student moved back home and realized that their levels of stress went down with an
increase in their family’s emotional and financial support. Another student moved away from
their family home to create healthy boundaries in the relationships.
Thematic Presentation of Findings
After completing initial and secondary coding, the analysis illustrated that all 10 students
interviewed had a broad range of obstacles that they overcame to be able to continue their
college journey. Some of these students had so many stressors in their lives, but they also had
many external and internal supportive factors that helped them navigate their difficulties. In the
section below I first discuss the challenges to student well-being, the internal factors that
influenced their well-being, and the external supportive factors that influenced their well-being.
I end the chapter with a summary of the findings and then continue to Chapter Five for final
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concluding remarks. It is important to know the details of the students’ stories because it shows
the intricacies of the dynamics among their internal supportive factors and how they utilize their
external supportive factors to improve their states of well-being academically, psychologically,
and socially.
Individual Challenges to Well-Being
Challenges faced by study participants included medical conditions, mental health
conditions, disabilities, family stressors, being assaulted, financial stressors, housing stressors,
going through the COVID-19 pandemic, and being in a refugee camp. Some of the specific
examples illustrated below show how the barriers students faced led to them developing internal
supportive factors. Some of these stressors also show how students were able to deal with them
by developing coping strategies. It is important to know that a gap exists between the resources
that exist to support students through their difficulties and their ability to access them (Reinert et
al., 2021). For example, mental health resources exist on each campus to help students and it was
observed that one student accessed them successfully and another one struggled with the
navigation of connecting with a mental health practitioner. The data observed in the student
interviews showed that some of the students were experiencing barriers to accessing sources that
could help them psychologically, socially, and academically and this study explored the specific
nuances of each student’s experiences. This detailed information can help institutions provide the
specialized training that university staff needs to implement to help close the gap that still exists
between student needs and student resources.
Mental Health Challenges
Study participants faced a wide range of challenges to their mental health. One student
had severe depression and he could not focus on anything. This same student was also seeing a
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psychiatrist for hallucinations. After being assaulted, this student started having anxiety. He
explained how hard his mental health made it to connect with people, “it honestly is terrible and
then I had to go see a psychiatrist and then I got put on Zoloft and I am still taking Zoloft. I have
more anxiety than I did before about socializing.”
One student was mourning the loss of her grandmother. Another student was diagnosed
with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and explained how the diagnosis affected her
learning, “I have ADHD. I have a cognitive learning disability. So, my development, brain-wise,
it is not going to be up to speed a lot of the time.” This student was also successfully able to
navigate her mental health resources internally and externally to be able to succeed academically
and psychologically in her 1st year of college. The differences between the student experiences
illustrate how there is still a gap between the mental health needs of students and their ability to
be able to access the mental health resources that exist on campus.
Medical Conditions
Some students had experienced medical conditions before attending college or during
their 1st year of college. One student had surgery for a bone tumor and explained how his
healing took a toll on his schoolwork;
recovering in time to come back to school was a bit nerve-wracking so I would say that
kind of hindered me at the start of the semester that was one of the main stressors in my
life that were bothering me.
Another student had a medical condition, keratoconus, before attending college. Her condition
made her vision blurry and commented how this experience enabled her to see the world
differently from others. This student’s story illustrates how some of her life skills were
developed, going through this medical experience, not having a clear vision, and then finally
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being able to see the world, her parents, and herself after receiving medical treatment to correct
her vision problems.
Social Isolation
Some students experienced social isolation as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, others
became socially withdrawn due to other reasons; for example, being assaulted and living out of
fear due to harassing text messages and a lack of support and safe spaces. One student believed
that the COVID-19 pandemic greatly affected the social situation at the university level, but she
was also able to comprehend how students and staff could recuperate and continue to function.
This student explained very specifically the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on social
interactions;
We have to go back to the old ways, where we go to class in person, and then learn how
to communicate again, like as a society now we have to go back in person and reteach
ourselves back into our old ways, I would say.
These two students show how they were socially isolated due to different reasons and how they
were able to overcome these situations to continue their college journey.
Family Stressors
Some students had family stressors, for example, unstable family systems, or family
members with worsening medical health conditions. In some cases, these stressors led to pivotal
moments where students strengthened their mentality, sense of confidence, and motivation to
succeed in college. These students have these stressors but also have positive external supportive
factors and the process of experiencing them nurtures and creates motivation. One student was
able to explain to the interviewer what motivated him to be in school. This student was thinking
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about dropping out of college due to his mother’s worsening medical health but after consulting
with his family and his advisor he changed his mind:
What made me change was kind of talking it through with them, and then realizing that if
I get out of school right now with the number of scholarships that I have right now, I am
not going to get any of that back. And this is kind of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, so I
should not be wasting this one opportunity. And they also told me that even if all the
schooling does not work out, at the very end that is fine. Like I’m still living my life and
experiencing things. And I’ve talked to my family and one of the university consultants.
So, kind of everybody around me told me that I should not give up so easily; and I guess
that stuck with me ever since, you know.
Another student had a similar story where she had family stressors (i.e., caring for her siblings)
but was able to create healthy boundaries and make healthy decisions to help her learn how to
manage her work and school load. Her mother has created some instability in her life, but she has
been able to learn how to take care of herself amid this instability. She is also able to appreciate
her grandmother and knows what parts of her are helpful for her and which parts of her
personality she is better off by being distant from them for her identity development.
Immigration Status
One student even though she received a scholarship was not able to access the funds
because of her immigration status. This student also worked and at first lived on campus but then
moved back home. She learned how to use time management skills, self-awareness skills, and
coping skills to deal with her stressors. This student also used her proactivity and assertiveness
skills to search for people from her same culture. There were a few people from her country in
this area and she believed it was important to socially connect to people from her country and
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culture. This situation forced her to strengthen her proactivity, assertiveness, social awareness,
and relationship management skills. She explained:
But since I was coming here, my cousin also came to this university and she was like,
“Oh, it’s diverse. So, I was like, “Oh, cool.” But so far, it is not successful. So, I am
planning on joining an African association here next semester to see if I will meet new
people.
Another student with an immigrant background also had a story about how he dealt with his
stressors. It is as if the experiences he went through nurtured his social awareness skills,
relationship management skills, mentality, confidence, and motivation to succeed in
college. These difficult times can also be times of growth where the students can develop
different skills;
I never had a family, the only family that I have is my siblings and my mom, so those are
the only people that I have known for 19 years. So whenever I am in public or around
people that I do not know, I always feel like I should put myself out there and show
everybody that it is okay to form a community and it is okay to be a part of that
community. So I feel like I am good at bringing people together because everybody has a
story to share and I feel like once I get to know the person and get to know their stories, it
makes it easy for me to bond and, you know, create a long friendship.
Again, it is as if these difficult situations nurtured these internal positive supportive factors. This
student has been part of a high school program and has accessed a group of institutional agents
despite his immigration status and background. This student used his situation and turned it
around for his benefit using positive external supportive factors, like empowerment agents, to
increase his internal positive supportive factors like the motivation to succeed in college. And
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again, just like another student, this student is forced to make these types of social networking
connections, because as an immigrant he does not have an established community. He is forced
to create one for himself. But this situation also nurtures his internal positive supportive factors,
social skills, confidence, and motivation to succeed through the additional support of his external
supportive factors, like his group of empowerment agents.
Ultimately, all this information provides an overview of what contributes to a student’s
well-being. These are very strong psychological, social, and academic movements going on in
the lives of students as they navigate their 1st year of college. Of the 10 students in the sample,
all of them had overcome significant obstacles. The hardships they endured medically, socially,
financially, and psychologically were situations that put them in places in need of medical
attention, social connections, scholarships, and mental health counseling. Some of these students
accessed the resources they needed and flourished socially, psychologically, financially, and
academically, having a meaningful college experience.
Internal Factors That Influence Positive Well-Being
It was observed that students had a range of internal supportive factors that helped them
succeed in their 1st year of college. Some were social skills, some were emotional abilities, some
were academic skills, some were healthy lifestyle habits, and some were mental capacities. In
applying Erickson’s psychosocial developmental theory (Erikson, 1968) to the different student
interviews, perhaps the students vary regarding where they are still developing their skills; for
example, their coping skills, relationship skills, self-awareness skills, time management skills,
and study skills. It was observed that the students varied regarding how developed they were in
these different areas. The complexity of the development of young adults is very intricate in
being aware of emotions and thoughts and making decisions to make things better for oneself.
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What was observed in these individual students was how they were being self-aware of
their emotions and taking care of themselves and making decisions to improve their emotional
status. Students went back home and to places, they felt safe and supported, or one even went to
a community college to be close to his support network. Also observed during these individual
interviews was that these decisions helped students at various levels emotionally, socially,
academically, financially, and professionally. It is important to study students’ internal
supportive factors because according to systems theory, having a person in the environment
conceptual approach, these internal supportive factors can be nurtured (Robbins et al.,
2019). However, from this study, it was observed that students’ developmental rates for these
internal supportive factors varied. Below I reflect on how these internal supportive factors can be
nurtured either by different external student supportive factors, like family, positive safe physical
spaces (libraries, dorm buildings, student association buildings, and gyms), and empowerment
agents (instructors, counselors, advisors, and mentors). This section ends with a summary
analyzing this specific area of internal supportive factors.
Motivation
Motivation was an internal supportive factor that was observed in the student
interviews. This motivation was the driving force behind some of the students’ reasons to be in
college. The motivation came from different sources, some from family influence and
background history, some from empowerment agents that helped students from difficult
situations.
The student interviews also showed that motivation also stemmed from internal ambition,
dreams, and hopes. One student had an inner motivation to not only succeed in college but also
had the motivation to advocate for others. By the spring semester of 2022 of her 1st year of
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college, she was already the vice president of one of the college associations that held supportive
events for students. For this student, the empowerment agents (advisors) did regular check-ins
with her sending her emails and making her feel cared for and supported, and making sure she
had access to all the resources she needed. She reflected on the role that the program staff played
in her life:
I feel they (advisors) have a caring and supportive quality for me. They also send positive
quotes in every email they send, which is very motivational for me. I just feel like they
are very understanding, and their job is to make sure that we are good, that we are taken
care of, and that we have the space and the resources that we need.
These were external supportive factors that motivated her. This in turn also made her motivated
to become an advocate for student needs in one of the student organizations. With this type of
support, this student was able to also learn from her advisor’s time management skills and she
was also able to learn how to care for herself and her well-being. Similarly, with another student,
his external supportive factor, his instructor, motivated him to go to college;
Well, I am currently studying journalism and one of the people that motivated me was my
teacher. He helped jump-start my love for journalism and then my senior teacher for the
yearbook was also a big motivator helped me. He helped me fill out stuff, fill out
scholarship forms, and fill out financial aid. He helped me get the best I could to get to
college.
Again, as this student elaborates, they help him problem solve, and they motivate him to stay in
college:
Definitely. Definitely. My CCTP mentor, and the coordinator who runs the program.
They’re both really big motivators for me, really big help, my mentor, he is real every
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time that we meet, he is constantly finding ways for me to get out of situations. If I
explain to him that I am doing badly in class he willl give me things that I can try to try to
get caught up with. Then for the coordinator, tries to meet with me, she can because I do
open up a lot to her about stuff. So, she helped me get through a lot and they are big
reasons that I am still here at the university.
Again, with this student, these are external supportive factors, interactions with key program
staff, that increase his internal supportive factor, his motivation. In this student’s story his other
external supportive factor is his family; specifically, his grandmother’s death had a big impact on
his decision to go to college;
Well, most of my life surrounds my family because my whole family because the
majority of the family, including my parents and grandparents, were all born in Cuba. So,
they are not from here. It was around the early 1990s when they came to the U.S. and for
most of my life, I surrounded myself with my cultural background. Like I said, originally,
I was not going to go to college because it just really was not something I saw as an
interest at all. I just going to get myself a job and just go on in life, but then it was with
the help of my grandma before she passed, she said that she wants me to move forward.
She wants me to be able to go to college since none of them were able to, not my
grandparents or my parents. They were not able to do any of that. My dad, the furthest he
got in school was the eighth grade. After that, he just dropped out back in Cuba and then
my mom, graduated high school, but that was as far as she got. So currently I am the one
going the furthest. So, I just feel like that helps me not just make myself happy about it,
but it helps me remember that I am doing my family justice.
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This student’s story also helps illustrate his inner sense of motivation and what that looks like as
he is determined to move forward in the pursuit of a college degree. This student depends so
much on his family as his support system that he even decided to move to a community college
to be close to them. He plans to leave the community college he is at in 2 to 3 years. His family
is a great motivator for him with their emotional support. He can go to college and think more
clearly and decide on his major. Similarly, with another student, his family and his EAs
(advisors) are great motivators for him, especially when he was thinking about dropping out of
college due to his mother’s worsening medical health. This student’s family and EAs are again
great motivators for him to stay in college as he explains:
And, as for the advisors that I had, she, you know, well, there was multiple. They kept
encouraging me to keep pursuing and that because my brother had been on that
scholarship years before, they told me what he had been talking about me and how he had
been saying that he knows that I am smart and that he knows that I am going to do great
things. So, hearing all that motivation is what encouraged me to keep going.
What is being observed, here again, is how external supportive factors, EAs, increase internal
supportive factors, like motivation. With other students observed in their interviews, their
motivation arose from their inner selves;
Because when I came here the 1st year, I was doing well in my classes. But then I started
taking the tests and then my grades went down a little. Then I had to sit myself down and
then talk to myself, like, “Let’s do this, let’s study at this time, let’s do it this way” and
my grades started coming up again.
With another student as well, the source of her motivation comes from her internal realizations,
especially from having to work with end-of-life patients, she sees things differently;
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I want success. The older I get, the more that I'm seeing how short life is. Like I am only
19 and I am seeing to 60. I guess it is because I do work with end-of-life care, but I see
how short life is. We do not have as much time as we may think all the time, especially
when we are young. We think about everything, you know, so I just want to reach my
goals. I do not ever want to look back and have regrets. The time is what makes
everybody the same whether you are rich or poor, no matter who you are, no matter what
country or what language you speak. We are all the same in the manner that we cannot
beat time. You cannot so you have to make the best out of everything because even you
are going to have more ordinary days and different days. Like if you are miserable every
single day and then you enjoy one trip, you have only enjoyed one week out of the whole
year of your life. Like, enjoy ordinary days as well.
This student works full-time seeing these types of patients and she goes to school full-time. The
interviewer asked her how she managed all of this and she answered;
That is the strength of God, let me tell you. I do not know. I am just driven. Like I have to
a lot of the things that I have accomplished I had to do by myself. I have so much help.
Like, oh goodness, I had so many great teachers in high school, professors in college, and
so much help from amazing people that have been in my path. And, just want to be
successful so badly, I have bills. Like nobody was going to say, “Here is a car.” I had to
work for that. Nobody is going to say, “Here is the money for your place.” I had to work
for that and everything that I am trying to do for myself. I know that I want to live, like I
said, enjoying ordinary days. Everything that I do now is going to reap everything I am
sowing. I will reap that in the next 10 years, and that is just what is driving me because I
want to live a life where I can enjoy the ordinary days where I do not have to stress as
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much, and where I can help out. My sister is only four, so I kind of have a motherly
relationship with her. Actually, as my sister, I feel kind of like a mother. And we also live
with our grandma, so it is like she has me and then my grandma is older. So, it is like I
kind of take on a role when it comes to that, and I just want to be able to make sure she is
okay. And I want to live a life different than what I have had to see from my parents and
other people in my life. I watch a lot of people in my family, and I have learned that
taking advice from everybody is not always the right thing to do because they are not
happy. So, I am willing to take the risks and put in the work, and even if I am tired, I
know it will pay off. It will be worth it.
For this student there are a lot of things motivating her; for example, she wants to help
others. She has been helped a lot too in the past by her EAs in high school and college and her
family. And this student wants her life to be a certain way, she wants to be a certain way for
others, to be able to help them, and to be different from what she has grown up seeing so far in
her life. She wants a better life, plus she knows that whatever she wants materialistically, she has
to work for it, earn the money, and pay for it herself. She has been given a lot by her support
system and she feels like she owes them a great version of herself;
In high school, I was a very crappy student. My GPA in college is so much better than in
high school. But I went through so much in high school, and I think that high school is
just such a difficult time because teenagers go through so much just in their minds and
then everything I was doing on top of that in my life personally. It did not help and at one
point I was like I did want to care. And that is why I give so much credit to my teachers
and my principal in high school that helped me so much. I could never, ever thank them
enough for getting me to college. Without them, I would not have made it. And now that
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I am here, I am not taking that for granted. Like I am here, and I am going to put in the
work, and I am going to make everything worth it. I do not want to disappoint anybody,
my parents, my family, professors, teachers, and everybody who helped me along the
way. I owe it to them and even more so to myself to make something great out of
myself.
For this student, her EAs, advisor, and instructor also motivated her to do better in college;
My advisor, I do not have a class with him, but I had one with him last semester. I
flourished in that class, like, I finished that class with like a 95. That class is like a class
for my major, so it’s like obviously what I am more passionate about as well. That kind
of makes it easier to do well in that class, but my professor, just always made me feel
heard, never judged. Always, “You know, what do you want to do?” Always willing to
help me, always offering things like, “You need a letter of recommendation,” and not
only for me but for the whole class like he was making time, setting aside for me, and
meeting with me.
Another student’s story illustrates how his motivation is an inner force driving him to complete
his goal in life. He explains where his motivation to bring people together comes from:
I never had a family, so like I said, I grew up in a refugee camp. The only family that I
have is my siblings and my mom, so those are the only people that I have known for 19
years. So whenever I am in public or around people that I do not know, I always feel like
I should put myself out there and show everybody that it is okay to form a community
and it is okay to be a part of that community. So I feel like I am good at bringing people
together because everybody has a story to share and I feel like once I get to know the
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person and get to know their stories, it makes it easy for me to bond and, you know,
create a long friendship.
Again, just like observed in other situations it seems like challenges have been a nesting ground
for the development of some skills, referring to the person in the environment concept from
systems theory (Robbins et al., 2019). In this student’s example, the development of social and
relationship-building skills comes from being in a refugee camp and only having his siblings and
mother. For this student’s story, another source of motivation is one of his professors whom he
meets regularly with as part of his major:
[Dr. B.] went over everything in detail and that was the moment when I felt like this is
doable. She kind of inspired me to do what I am doing. She is a professor. She just
seemed like she was very interested and very invested in my future because not only she
wanted me to succeed, she wanted me to be comfortable with the classes that I was
choosing because most people might choose classes depending on schedules and stuff
like this, but she would get into details like, “Hey, in these classes, you are going to want
to do this. This is how you can apply this to your future. When you are applying for med
school, they are going to need to see this GPA, such and such. It is better to get involved
in this and that.” So, during that meeting, I felt like she, you know, was highly interested
in what I was doing. So that kind of inspired me a lot because I was like, hey if there is
someone like who is in a position that she is in right now, you know, telling me this as a
college freshman, there is a way that I can make it to graduate school and be a
professional.
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With a wide range of external supportive factors (empowerment agents, advisors, instructors, and
mentors), this student has been able to flourish at all levels (academically, socially, and
psychologically).
For a different student, her primary external supportive factor was her family, who
greatly motivates her to be in college. She explains the role they played in her educational
trajectory:
My parents are immigrants and they immigrated here to the United States of America in
1999. And they told me that they moved here because they wanted to give my siblings
and me a better opportunity, giving us opportunities to better our lives for them, but more
for ourselves, having a better life than what they had in Mexico. I take a lot of pride in
knowing that even though my siblings and I weren’t present, we were still in mind when
they decided to immigrate. Knowing that they thought of us before we came shows just
how much they love us even more so than many other people. So, I decided to come to
college because I am taking the opportunity that they have given me and I'm going to use
it to become a lawyer, earn a good financial income, and be able to provide for them
more than they’ve provided for me. And to also help my other relatives that I have, my
grandparents both in Mexico and here and my other close relatives like my aunt and
uncle and maybe some other cousins. But also, to be more of a guiding aid for my
younger relatives because my brother and I are the first in our family to go to college. I
take more pride in being the first girl to go to college. I am breaking the norm right now
in my family. They are supporting me 100% for it.
Similarly, with another student and others, her external supportive factor, her family, increased
her motivation, she was “rejuvenated” when she would go home to visit them from
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college. Students kept their levels of motivation high by taking care of themselves. Students
used their skill of self-awareness and when they were tired, missing their families, or needing
someone to talk to they would be motivated by underlying beliefs to do well and to be well and
would either go home, reach out to others, or do activities that would help them take care of
themselves psychologically and physically.
Self-Awareness
It was observed that students displayed a degree of self-awareness. The students used
their self-awareness to make decisions to practice self-care, access resources, go home and visit
their families, and reach out to institutional agents when help was needed. When students are
self-aware, they evaluate what they need psychologically, socially, physically, academically, or
professionally and make decisions to improve whatever situation they are in.
One student displayed a degree of self-awareness and knew whom to turn to when she
needed help with something;
If I am ever struggling, I know I can go to my advisors. I have different mentors or adult
figures that I can turn to help me. I even have friends, too, who support me. When I have
had questions about certain things, they have helped me, too.
In addition, this student also displayed her self-awareness when she needed help with time
management and her well-being. She made changes and added certain activities to improve these
areas in her life, “I plan 3 weeks. I have assignments and things that must get done, so I like time
management. I have that done. I also plan out days where I have to take off to just take care of
myself too and my well-being.” She also knows that she must take care of herself and her mental
health.
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For another student, he was self-aware that he was lacking support at a university. He
was able to use this self-awareness of the need he had for support and made the decision to move
to another college and had in mind to return to the university in 2 to 3 years;
You know, because I was not doing too well at the university, so I just felt like maybe it
would be a better idea starting in a familiar place with a lot more of a bigger support
system then I would have in the university. Because at the university, my only support
system was the CCTP staff, and then my friend, we are here, I have my whole family and
all my friends.
With this decision, he was happy again to have support at home and school. He was able to
decide what major to concentrate on and was able to get a clearer vision as to what he wanted to
do for himself professionally.
For another student, he was able to internalize all the positive external factors, like a
welcoming campus environment, and supportive EAs and he felt validated and that he could
have a successful college journey. This student was aware of his environment and that some
people were homophobic and even though he felt fearful he also felt close and supported and
safe with his group of friends. For this student’s self-awareness, he identified with his two
identities, Latino and LGBTQ male, and he was proud of whom he was, especially having an
association where he felt accepted and supported on campus. This student felt fearful because of
his identity but knew that he would be fine because of the support group he related to. For this
student, his self-awareness helped him to identify what he can do and the people that believe in
him. These realizations encouraged him to stay in school when he was thinking about dropping
out. This student has also been using his self-awareness to help decrease his levels of stress;
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I have kind of adopted this way of thinking that I should just be calm all the time, and I
do not know. I guess that all that stress just dissolves or something because I am not
taking any actions to deal with it. I am just ignoring it the entire time. So, I guess, I am
being calm and just trying not to stress. It is kind of just lowering my stress levels and
getting rid of that stress slowly.
This student uses his self-awareness to gauge how burned out he is and takes advantage of free
time to do things that he “always loves to do.”
Another student also had a strong sense of self-awareness and was able to use this
capacity to learn new skills; for example, study skills and time management to improve her
academic standing. This student was also been self-aware of her personality traits and the
development of her social skills. As a Black student, she has tried connecting with people from
her country and culture and she was not able to find any on campus except for one
instructor. She is self-aware of how she is practicing interacting with other people, increasing her
levels of confidence, and decreasing her levels of fear;
I would still say I am an introvert, but I am more open. At first, I was really quiet. I kept
to myself. But now I am open. Like I am blunt about things. And I am not afraid of
approaching people like I used to be. And I do not mind getting to know people. Because
at first, trust me, I would not talk. I like to keep to myself. Because I like my personal
space. But I realized social interactions are important, too. So yeah. I would say I am still
an introvert, but now I talk more and am not afraid to get to know more people.
This student is a reflective person and is self-aware of the impact of her experiences. Another
student also had a very well-developed sense of self-awareness and this has greatly helped her
with the job she has with end-of-life patients, learning how to take care of herself as well. This
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student understands also that she had a difficult time as a teenager in high school but is very
grateful to the EAs that helped her succeed and overcome these difficult times. And she is using
these experiences to remind her where she has been, and who is in her corner rooting for her, and
all of this motivates her emotionally, and mentally, with focus and purpose to succeed
academically. For this student, her instructors were also able to tell that she had good self-
awareness and were able to give her some cognitive skills to use to make decisions to improve
her situations in life, “if you are not happy, go change something, or sit there and feel sorry for
yourself. If you are happy, well, keep doing what you are doing; you are doing the right thing.”
Again, this student is self-aware and knows what she needs to do for support;
I find myself distracting myself rather than supporting myself. I have a habit that I am
very guilty of, a screen. I like to watch TV rather than think about what is wrong with me
and deal with it, when, what I have always used though, even as a kid, I have so many
journals from my childhood. I write. Like, that is just me. I love to write. I am very
linguistic. I like languages. Like even when I was a kid, I remember writing music, and
poems, and crap, you know? I just always liked to use words and to learn new words and
it is just kind of been a part of myself. So, when I do cope properly that is kind of how I
do it. It just makes everything clear to see it out on a piece of paper.
For another student, he is self-aware of what he needs to do as a student to achieve his goals and
he is committed and dedicated. This student is self-aware of where he is from, what he has gone
through in life, and what he has achieved. He is self-aware of discrimination and division and he
is in a male professional support group that motivates and encourages him with wise advice. But
everyone contributes their thoughts here and everyone is welcome from all educational and
professional levels, him being the youngest.
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For another student, her self-awareness is also tied to her identity and personality traits;
I am Hispanic, Mexican specifically, and I take a lot of pride in that. So, I came from a
very White town, for lack of better words. And with my culture and my traditions, it was
a little hard to fit in. So, at one point I did not feel comfortable with my identity, but now
since senior year, changing schools with all the diversity was very eye-opening for me.
So now I am very confident. That is one word. I am also very ambitious, and I do my best
to persevere I am pretty volatile, meaning I am pretty flexible in a lot of things that I do.
One word that I am always told by older adults is I am very assertive.
For this student, she is part of an academic professional group that does mock trials for students
who are pursuing a career in law. This student has had a positive experience with her peers and
instructor. She is self-aware of her experiences and difficulties and she can share and connect
with this group,
With the mock trial, it is like every team is a little family and we are all related and it is
not hard to feel like you belong in the mock trial because we are all putting in our time
and effort and for a lot of us mock trial is the biggest thing that we have going on right
now. So, we all understand if we are struggling a little bit, we do not just ignore it. We
acknowledge it and we help each other through it.
For this student, she is self-aware of her identity and what her college journey means to herself
as an individual, and what this also means to her family; specifically, being self-aware of all of
these significant values affects her motivation to be in college.
Emotional Intelligence
Some students displayed a degree of emotional intelligence. One student illustrates this
area of development. She is succeeding at school, has leadership qualities, cares for others, can
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socially connect with others, is learning how to care for herself, is learning where to go for help,
and is learning study skills and time management skills, so much to the point that she went from
being the freshman representative in a student organization to be the vice president. She now
creates events and welcoming spaces for other people. Her involvement in activities provides her
with an opportunity to reflect on the lessons she is learning:
I would say a lot of learning and a lot of time management. At first, everything I learned I
felt like I learned from student organizations. Time management was what I learned from
student organizations. Counseling was from student organizations. Advising was from
student organizations. So honestly, my huge success and just how I am is to student
organizations. Also, just student council and being a part of something, and being able to
represent people. So those two organizations and departments helped me. So, I plan out
my weeks. I plan three weeks of assignments and things that have to get done, so I like
time management. I have that done. I also plan out days where I must take off to just take
care of myself too and my well-being.
For this student, she has been able to take her emotional intelligence to a higher level where she
now helps others and is being recognized for that by being given an award as an emerging leader
voicing student needs and helping them as well. This student can grasp all the skills that could
help a freshman student entering their 1st year of college. Another student spells out what
emotional intelligence looks like for him;
Having patience, because I can say I understand that I am not going to be able to become
a college graduate overnight, determination because if I am set on something I will be
able to finish it, and knowledge that I can do something more.
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Emotional intelligence looks a little different for other students. This student has been
experiencing difficulties with his mother’s worsening medical health condition and he was
thinking about dropping out of college. This student talked with his family and school advisors
and was able to decide to stay in school with their support;
So, I would say for the whole aspect, it would be my family that I live with and some of
the advisors in the scholarship program that I am in. I would say it was first my family,
because we are pretty close, and we try not to keep secrets from each other. So, I felt
super awkward about it, but I knew that I had to tell them eventually that I wanted to drop
out at that point. And so, I did tell them, and they kept encouraging me and motivating
me to keep pursuing college because I had a scholarship. If I ever want to go back into
college, I am never going to be able to, unless I have the money, after, if I were to drop
out. And, as for the advisors that I had, there were multiple. They kept encouraging me to
keep pursuing and that because my brother had been on that scholarship years before,
they told me what he had been talking about me and how he had been saying that he
knows that I am smart and that he knows that I am going to do great things. So, hearing
all that motivation is what encouraged me to keep going. And, as for the what part I was
able to rebound because I just have these sudden moments of inspiration and it is kind of
almost a mood swing kind of deal, because I know that there are times when I am going
to feel horrible about my self-image, for example, and I am going to have just the worst
of days.
For another student, emotional intelligence looks like being aware of her learning experiences
and her maturation period away from her parents where she struggles and navigates through her
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1st year of college. For this student, emotional intelligence looks like the ability to reflect upon
her development, identity, and learning experiences in college;
I am reflective, and I am curious. I am a curious person. So, I just used this opportunity to
learn more about people and more about where they are from, the things they value and
the things they do not their beliefs, and their traditions.
Emotional intelligence looks different for individual students. Some use it to balance their work,
school, and personal experiences, to bring the best version of themselves to life, like for another
student, for example;
I slowly but surely learned to make myself more of a priority because if I cannot take
care of myself, I cannot take care of them. And they all deserve the best version of
myself. And it is hard to bring the best version of yourself every single day. Like I
describe myself as energetic and bubbly, but the reason I hesitated was simply that I
know that I do have my days where I feel like crap or I don't want to get up. Everybody
gets tired. I work full-time and go to school full-time. It can be a lot, but I know that they
are loved [laughs]. Honestly, just that knowing that I'm their new grandchild that got to
be there for them is enough for me.
This student has learned what helps her function psychologically and what helps her balance her
workload, like exercise and her awareness as how this helps her feel better;
Last semester, by November I felt like I had a schedule on like when I went to work
when I went to the school when I got to exercise. This semester I am not exercising. I feel
like that throws me off a lot. Exercising has always been like a big part of my life, and it
makes me feel better here, like, it just helps me a lot.
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For this student, emotional intelligence is used to help her be self-aware and knows when to
activate her coping skills.
For another student, his emotional intelligence looks like a mental approach where he
knows what he needs to do to succeed in college; specifically, this student is focused, and
priority driven. This student’s emotional intelligence is also evident in how he manages his
relationships personally, professionally, and academically and how he turns to his advisors for
support. He uses his emotional intelligence to plan out what his educational journey will look
like and he prepares his mindset for the long term 20 years down the road after graduate
school.
For another student, emotional intelligence looks like how she manages a difficult
situation with an instructor who was inappropriate with her. She decided to drop the class and
was able to get support from her emotionally supportive instructors and peers; through this
process, she was able to manage one of her stressors during her 1st year of college.
Themes arose from the different interviews observed, one of them was that emotional
intelligence was used by students to connect to sources of support that would help them feel
better. Emotional intelligence looked different and the same for the student interviews
observed. Some used their emotional intelligence to connect with people that would help them
academically, socially, and psychologically. Others used their emotional intelligence to stay
connected with their external sources of support like their family, friends, and instructors,
advisors, counselors, and mentors. For some students observed, it was noted that their emotional
intelligence was more developed in others as evidenced by the decisions they were making with
their social connections and their academic resources. Some students made wiser choices than
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others; for example, some students stayed isolated and others engaged in student associations
that supported them psychologically and academically.
Coping Skills
Some students displayed a degree of being able to practice coping skills. Some students
were able to be self-aware and able to psychologically connect that they needed to practice their
coping skills. The coping skills ranged from going to the gym, going to a counselor for mental
health services, watching TV, journaling, and spending time with their loved ones and pets.
For example, when one student was informed that her grandmother had passed away she
went to her mental health counselor at school to talk about what was going on, “We have
counseling in our school that I do participate in and I do go to just talk and also help guide me, in
a way.” This student has been learning how to take care of herself and what she needs to do to
have good time management and study skills and her coping skills have helped her with these
other skills, “time management helps with how I write stuff and how I study. I have also learned
to take breaks and to take personal self-care stuff. I try to space it out and make an equal balance
with it.” This student takes coping skills to a higher level with regards to involving others in her
coping process by being involved in study groups and reaching out to her peers for support, “So
we would have like a study night, where we can all just talk about what has been going on, or
what we feel like has been what people are struggling with and we also incorporate that with
studying.” This student has been able to concretely learn how to manage her time and take care
of herself, “I plan 3 weeks the assignments and things that must get done, so I like time
management. I have that done. I also plan out days where I have to take off to just take care of
myself too and my well-being.” At the end of her 1st year in college, this student became a
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mentor for others to help them learn these skills as well as providing knowledge about the
resources students can reach out to for support;
use your resources, and student organizations. We also have the library and university
tutoring, and we have buildings associated with student organizations, which are also a
really good resource for a studying place or support. And we have the university mental
health place. I would say just mental health and wellness, you need to take care of
yourself and have planned out your time, too, so you do not get overwhelmed.
This student knows whom to turn to when she needs someone to talk to, be it her close friend, or
staff from a student organization.
Another student was able to use his coping skills to help him navigate through deciding
not to drop out of college due to his mother’s worsening medical health. This student was able to
use his coping skills and communicate with his family and advisors during his decision-making
process, “they kept encouraging me and motivating me to keep pursuing college because I had a
scholarship.” This student went through a difficult 1st year of college due to his mother’s
worsening medical health but during the summer semester, he was able to get some time,
activated his coping skills, took care of himself, had fun, and did what he loves to do like,
watching Hulu television series and listening to music.
For another student, the use of coping skills is important because she is a certified nursing
assistant (CNA) and works with end-of-life patients. She can activate her coping skills and find
some distraction and she can do other things that help her deal with her thoughts and feelings,
like journaling:
I like to watch TV rather than think about what is wrong with me and deal with it, when,
what I have always used though, even as a kid, I have so many journals from my
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childhood. I write. Like, that is just me. I love to write. I am very linguistic. I like
languages. Even when I was a kid, I remember writing music, and poems, and crap, you
know? I just always liked to use words and to learn new words and it is just kind of been
a part of myself. So, when I do cope properly that is kind of how I do it. It just makes
everything clear to see it out on a piece of paper.
For another student, he is also able to activate his coping skills and reach out to his advisors if he
needs someone to talk to;
And that is why I feel like I get all the support that I need. And these are not just to be
two rings or just like having that emotional support or having someone to talk to, but they
are just so friendly and so welcoming that you see them and you are like if I needed
somebody to talk to you will be the one to talk to.
This student also has fun with the extra time he might have and goes to the gym and the library;
At the gym, I get to be motivated. I see people that I am doing stuff with, and we talk,
and they say, “Hey, don’t you have homework? Why are you here?” And stuff like that.
That leads up to another thing and I just feel so motivated when I am in the gym because
I'm not only working on my gains and stuff, just lifting the muscles, but I am also
focusing my mental health and stuff like that. So at first, I thought I was the only person
who goes to the gym for that particular reason, and when I started talking to people and
they say “Oh, I have five, six, seven homeworks and this is the only place that I feel like I
am able to focus on me, clear up my mind before I can go and do some other stuff.” So, I
like that supporting system, the being motivated for my classmates and my fellow friends
that I have made in the gym. And the library, in particular, besides chilling, and reading
books, and grabbing that coffee, and just relaxing before you start studying, there is not
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so much goes in there because once you start seeing all these people that are studying and
stuff, it kind of triggers you and pressures you a little bit to be, oh, maybe I should be
doing the same thing, too. But I like that, too, because it kind of pushes me to be better
somehow.
Another student has been able to cope with the difficulties of her 1st year of college by
interacting professionally and academically with other students in academic professional groups;
With these professional academic groups, it is like every team is a little family and we are
all related and it is not hard to feel like you belong because we are all putting in our time
and effort and for a lot of us these professional academic groups are the biggest thing that
we have going on right now. So, we all understand if we are struggling a little bit, we do
not just ignore it. We acknowledge it and we help each other through it.
This student is also aware of what types of activities help relax her;
I love taking naps, but I have not been able to take a good nap this semester so far. But I
did take one yesterday for the first time. But relaxing for me it is sitting and watching a
show on my TV. Or laying down and doing that. And just being in my room, putting on
the humidifier or lax warmer so that it smells nice, drinking tea. Also, I made sure to do
that yesterday, especially after the stressful day I had. Or calling someone and talking to
them, that is also one way.
This student also has her internal coping skills, rational thinking, “I have mostly either gotten the
answers I have needed from myself or just thinking about it rationally once I calm down from an
emotional standpoint.” When asked about this skill, this student expanded on how she was able
to build it:
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I came about it myself because I was first diagnosed with ADHD back in 2020, right
before the pandemic, and it was at that time that I realized just how hard it was for me to
think about things if I cannot see them. So, it is a see-it-to-believe-it sort of thing. And so,
I would write things down, kind of like journaling, but I [Break in audio] daily thing or
anything. It would just be when I needed it. And I would read it and I would just think,
“What could I be, what could this person be.” Instead of thinking about how I am feeling
when I write down what I am feeling, I would think about that as, “What does it seem
like this person is feeling?” And I would try to interpret multiple meanings for that or
those feelings or what could [Break in audio] caused by. And it helps me understand
better understand what I am feeling. And I would always tell, like, my sister or someone
else if they were having trouble with something, I would say, “Just write it out. Write it
out, and maybe seeing it will help you understand it better.” And it reminded me also,
because I struggled with mental math a lot when I was younger. I could not do it. And so,
I would always have to write something out. I think that is kind of where it started, not
being able to do math mentally. I had to write it out. I think that's where I started writing
out my feelings.
Different students had different types of coping strategies and some were more seasoned and had
practiced them for longer periods due to possibly having difficult situations when they were
younger.
Relationship Management
Students were also able to verbalize how they were managing their relationships at home
and school. Some students were observed to be creating healthy boundaries with their
families. Some students were observed to be having positive communication interactions with
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school staff. Some students sought out and created student groups that would help them socialize
and study. This area was important for the students because when the students were able to
manage their relationships, they were able to create a support network for themselves and this in
turn positively impacted their well-being.
For one student she was involved in her college campus as a resident advisor. She
interacted with others daily and she stated that this “really helps.” She shared how this was
important for her in life to have connections with others and feel like she belonged. This student
also shared how she was involved in the community council;
We have a community council and we host events. For that, we had one event, which was
karaoke night. I got involved with that and that just made me feel really happy, how
everyone cheered on with me. I talked with a lot of people and it was just more surprising
to get that support.
This was important for her emotionally, psychologically, and socially. Since this student knew
this was important for her, she sought these types of events in college, she used her self-
awareness skills to drive her decision-making skills as well. This student first became involved
with associations that helped her study and make friends;
It was titled a game night, but it was also like a study night. So, we played games that had
to do with the Black community or the colored community. So, it is just like a safe space
where people could come together and do homework if they did not feel like playing a
game, just like learning more about what is happening. I feel like in those times there's
also a time to be aware of situations that are happening, and also talk about your situation
and feel like you have a place to talk about it where no one can judge.
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This student also knows whom to turn to when she needs support. For another student, the
relationship management area of his life also contributes to his sense of security and
belonging. He identifies as a Latino LGBTQ male and he had witnessed some homophobic and
racial tensions but since he belonged to peer groups that supported the different parts of his
identity, he was still able to feel safe and emotionally connected. This student has a support
network he knows he can turn to for help if needed at home and school.
Another student was living at the college dorms at the beginning of her freshman year but
then moved back home with her family. In her relationship management area, she was close to
her family but also learned to take time for herself and juggle school, work, and her time with her
friends. For this student, her relationship management skills were able to get stronger in her 1st
year of college as she interacted with others and at the same time got to know herself;
I would still say I am an introvert, but I am more open. At first, I was really quiet. I kept
to myself. But now I am open. Like I am blunt about things. And I am not afraid of
approaching people like I used to be. And I do not mind getting to know people. Because
at first, trust me, I would not talk. I like to keep to myself. Because I like my personal
space. But I realized social interactions are important, too. So yeah. I would say I am still
an introvert, but now I talk more and am not afraid to get to know more people.
This student was aware of whom she could turn to for help as well and this also contributed to
her well-being. Going back home to live with her family, her primary support system, and
getting help financially from them helped decrease this student’s stress levels.
For another student, her relationship management area is more developed, and this is
important as she works with end-of-life patients and has learned how to maintain professional
boundaries in this giving profession. Again, this student has a very good idea of the dynamics
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that go into having relationships. She has created boundaries and knows whom to turn to for
support;
My mom, she is very encouraging, but our relationship is complicated. I would look to
my family more than I do, but my relationships are so complicated with my family, it is
not like, “Oh, I cannot even talk to my mom.” My mom is going to be there for me no
matter what, but she oftentimes, she is just the kind of person she will go in my stuff, or
you know, I just have a lot of dynamics in my family, so I kind of lean on my boyfriend,
because like you know, he is thinking more about me than himself. He is not going to sit
up here and give me advice that is going to benefit him. He is going to come up with
what benefits me, which helps me a lot. I think that a lot of people only give advice they
are not like; they kind of consider themselves before speaking and it can be hard to take
themselves out of the scenario and think, “Okay, what is this person need right now?
This student’s story is another example of a student who has a more developed area in
relationship management, “I am very outgoing. I like to bring people together.” This student was
asked why he was like this and this was his response;
I never had a family, the only family that I have is my siblings and my mom, so those are
the only people that I have known for 19 years. So, whenever I am in public or around
people that I do not know, I always feel like I should put myself out there and show
everybody that it is okay to form a community and it's okay to be a part of that
community. So, I feel like I am good at bringing people together because everybody has a
story to share and I feel like once I get to know the person and get to know their stories, it
makes it easy for me to bond and, you know, create a long friendship.
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It is as if this dire circumstance helped this student learn how to create relationships and how to
build his relationship skills. This student was able to create study groups that would help
him. This student is aware of the importance of managing all the areas in his life, “You are going
to have to be able to maintain, you know your social life as well as your school life and college
life as a whole.” Again, for this student, his relationship management skills are more developed
as evidenced by the interaction he had with one of his advisors;
Interviewer: Last time we talked you mentioned one interaction with your advisor
where you felt kind of that it was very matter of fact, very businesslike.
Do you still have the same advisor, or have you changed advisors since?
Student: We talked; we have the same advisor. I still got the same advisor, but I
addressed the issue that we had.
Interviewer: Oh, you did. How did that go?
Student: Yeah, smoothly. She told me that she was dealing with a lot of stress. It
was, I guess, understandable.
Interviewer: So, after that conversation do you feel you are getting what you need from
her and the approach that she has taken is where you need to be supported
in your classes?
Student: Definitely. She worked herself around. Right now, I feel more comfortable
with her than, you know, I have two advisors. If I am not getting what I
need from her I normally go to the premed advisor and see what she said
about it. I addressed the issue that I had with her. Everything worked out
well.
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And this in turn helps the student because this advisor is an external supportive factor helping
him academically and providing the support he needs.
Another student was able to use her relationship management skill and connect with her
academic professional group. This group was psychologically and academically supportive of
her. She had a group she could talk to and reach out to during difficult times. This support group
also impacted another area in her internal supportive factors, her motivation area, which in turn
also contributed to her well-being and academic success. Since this relationship management
area was so developed in this student, she would be open to more opportunities for socializing
versus a student who was still struggling to develop this skill. For this student, she was also able
to use her relationship management skill to help her through a difficult situation with one of her
instructors who was inappropriate with her. She ended up withdrawing from his class and she
was able to use the support from her professional academic student learning group to help her
overcome this difficult situation, “I just was looking for how to withdraw from a class and
making sure I knew what I would be going into if I withdrew from the class. And that is what I
spent doing for that class. And then I was able to calm myself down. Like I texted my group
“You guys, this just happened.” And they are like, “What the heck?” They helped me through it.
And they still are, I was like, “I just withdrew from the class. I am so happy.” And they are like,
“We are so happy for you.”
Another difficult situation with this student was with a roommate who was not
communicating with her. This student moved in with different roommates who had better
communication skills. She was aware of the need and the change that needed to happen. She was
able to use this relationship management skill to maneuver this difficult living situation and
improve her well-being and physical space;
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I did not realize how lonely it can feel being in a room with someone and not having
them talk to you or just straight up ignoring you or not acknowledging anything that's
going on and not being able to talk about that. It was very lonely for me, even when she
was right there. So, it made me a lot more conscious about whom I am living with and
what I should do to be a better roommate, but now, it is different, because all of us have
our rooms. We have our own spaces, but we also have our common spaces where we can
all hang out and talk. And so far, I have been here since Saturday, and it has been a lot of
fun already. Obviously, with the cats, but we were all able to talk, and we had our first
official roommate meeting Sunday night. So, we had our rules. We talked about things
that either concerned us or whatever.
Brief Summary of Internal Supportive Factors
Concluding thoughts from this specific section are that some students were being given
opportunities to manage their relationships in safe settings. In applying systems theory;
specifically, the person in the environment concept (Robbins et al., 2019), when individuals are
in safe, warm, nurturing settings, their internal skills can develop. One student directly
confronted the advisor he was having problems with and repaired what he thought was wrong
and changed the relationship into a positive trajectory. Another student decided to not confront
the instructor they were having problems with and instead dropped the class. So, in retrospect,
some students have more developed conflict resolution and more advanced communication and
reflective skills combined with assertiveness, proactivity, and self-confidence.
External Supportive Factors That Influence Positive Well-Being
As presented in prior sections there are external supportive factors that influence positive
well-being in students. Students also use their internal supportive factors to access their external
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supportive factors. Students make the decisions to use their supportive factors whether they are
internal or external to improve their situations psychologically and academically. In analyzing
the interviews, students were connecting the presence of these supportive external factors
contributing to their psychological and physical well-being. What was also noted was that
students accessed these external supportive factors when they needed them. In observing the
students through their interviews it was also noticed that certain external factors are more helpful
and accessible than others to the individual students; for example, some students, and
institutional agents were accessed more and were more helpful for certain students.
Family Support
Some students had family support, which took different forms. Some specifically lived at
home and were able to socially interact and get support from their caregivers. Some students
were able to go home about once a month to visit their families to get emotional support. Some
students lived away from home and were able to socially connect with their family support every
week. It was also observed that students were able to be aware of how important their family
support was for them and make decisions geographically to be close to this type of support or to
go home on the weekends or once a month to also be able to get this kind of support.
For one student, having his family support makes him feel “happy” and makes him
remember that he is doing his family “justice.” Most of his family was born in Cuba and they
came to the United States of America in the early 1990s. This student was not going to go to
college because he was not interested in it at all. Before his grandmother died, she wanted him to
go to college because none of them were able to go to college, his father’s highest grade of
education was eighth grade, and his mother had a high school diploma. This is foundational for
him because it affects his motivation, drive, focus, and purpose to be in college. This student
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needs to be close to his family because that is where he feels he gets support from and that he
needs it to go to college. Geographically and emotionally, this student needs to be close to his
family support to attend college.
For another student one of the main reasons he went to college was because his brother
had gone there before him. He explains how his brother’s experience motivated him to go there;
I think the main reason why I decided to come to the university is that my brother had
come to the university before. So, it is within my comfort zone to go, to come here, and I
think that was one of the main reasons.
Family support is important for this student because his mother had worsening medical health
and he felt overwhelmed and discouraged and was going to drop out of college. But after talking
with them they encouraged him to stay in school and to “not give up so easily.” Again, this
student felt discouraged in college and did not want to continue but his advisor encouraged him
and shared with him that his brother had the same scholarship as him and had described him as
“smart and capable of doing great things,” hearing this motivated him and encouraged him to
stay in college.
Another student was assaulted, was on academic probation, and dropped out of college
for a semester. This student left college that semester and went back home to be with his
family. He said that they were, “disappointed; however, they understood why these things
happened.” His family emphasized their support of him which he deeply appreciated, sharing,
“They said they would still support me as long as I still want to achieve my professional
goals. So, they still will support me and I am very grateful for that.”
This was a difficult time for this student but with family support, he was still able to have
his goals in mind and his family was supporting him. Another student wanted to be close to her
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family when she went to college, to visit them on the weekends. Her mother’s support helped her
make her college major decision. Her mother guided her through the decision-making
process. This student moved back home and had her family’s financial support which also
decreased her levels of stress and made her feel “more relaxed.” Being at home also helped her
because if she needed to ask someone a question, she was able to ask them in person and not
have to wait on a call callback;
At home, since you are with family, you know everyone's schedule better than when you
are in school. You do not know whether calling at this time will worry them or not. But at
home, you are with them, so it is easier to ask them, hey, listen, Dad, can you give me an
answer? Rather than in school, where you call, and then sometimes you cannot get them,
and then it is stressful, and you are like, whom do I turn to? Because not every problem
that you can tell people.
For another student, she has had a journey to college filled with different people that have helped
her along the way. Having her family support helps her mentally;
I am here, and I am going to put in the work, and I am going to make everything worth it.
I do not want to disappoint anybody, my parents, my family, professors, teachers, and
everybody who helped me along the way. I owe it to them and even more so to myself to
make something great out of myself.
Having her family support also helps her motivation to be in college. This student’s mother’s
support also helps her;
My mom offers lots of encouragement. My mom is so encouraging, even though my
relationship with my mom is so complicated, she is so encouraging, and I know I can lean
on her no matter what. I could call her and tell her anything and she would never judge
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me, or turn against me, or any of the sorts. It is so amazing to have a mom that is like
that. She would never tell me a dream is too big, or an idea is too small, nothing of the
sort. So, she is very supportive in that way.
This student’s grandmother’s support means a lot to her emotionally as well;
Her love is unmatched and is very unconditional. She is very forgiving of me, like, no
matter what mistakes I make. You know, she is always going to be there for me, so I
would say the support she gives is kind of just her being herself, you know what I mean?
Like, she is just her. She is always got her door open for me, no matter what I need. She
is always loving and willing to take me in and not to be weird, but I always lay on her
chest. She has the biggest chest and big boobs, so I lay on her. I have cried to her many
times and even if she does not know what it is for, I do not open up to my grandmother a
lot. I never really have. I just never felt comfortable, because of how opinionated she is I
think, but she is always there for me and I know she would understand if I needed to
because her door is always open. She would never shut me out for any reason.
For another student, her family support is the driving force for her decision to go to college. Her
family immigrated to the United States of America in 1999 to give her a better opportunity to
better their lives than what they had in Mexico. This student takes into mind the love her parents
have had for her. It gives her pride to know she is going to college for her family.
Empowerment Agents
Empowerment agents (EAs) are individuals that help students either in high school or
college. EAs can be counselors, advisors, professors, or mentors. One student had a conversation
with her interviewer regarding the role her EA played in making her feel like she could succeed
in college and this was the response;
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Well, I feel like I have the support that I need. If I am ever struggling, I know I can go to
my advisor, I can go to my mentors too. I have different mentors or adult figures that I
can turn to help me. I even have friends, too, who support me. When I have had questions
about certain things, they have helped me, too.
The other EA this student accessed was a counselor at school who helped her after getting the
news that her grandmother had passed;
Yeah. It was like trying to transition to college and then getting news that your grandma
passed away. It was tough, but I had people there. Ever since that, I have had people who
are willing to help, willing to listen. Especially with mental health. We have counseling
in our school that I do participate in and I do go to just talk and help guide me, in a way.
This student used this support system whenever she would struggle with something, she did not
understand during her 1st year of college. This student utilized her EAs (advisors) for mental
health checks and academic accountability;
I also really love student organizations because I have another advisor that I can go to if I
do not feel like I can go to my other advisor, and they are always there. I do not need an
appointment. They have a lot of resources for me. They have grade checks, which also
keep me accountable as a student to do good.
The regular check-ins that the advisors do with the students greatly help this student, “They
always send e-mails and they are always making sure that we are okay.” This student greatly
appreciated what these advisors did assuring them they had everything she needed;
I feel they have a caring and supportive quality for me. They also send positive quotes in
every email they send, which is very motivational for me. I just feel like they are very
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understanding, and their job is to make sure that we are good, that we are taken care of,
and that we have the space and the resources that we need.
This student’s story shows how she transformed in her 1st year of college; in the end, she even
became an advocate to help students, “I am now a student organization mentor.” With this
student, she would utilize her EAs (advisors and mentors) whenever she wanted to celebrate
something or needed motivation. This external supportive factor also increased her internal
supportive factor of motivation;
I would say the residence hall coordinator. He was another one I would just walk into his
office like, “Hey, I just got a 70 on my test,” and he always had candy, so I would be like
let me get that and calm down. So, when he left, it was really sad, but I know he is doing
better things now. Buildings associated with student organizations, like going there in
general were nice because we would have all these students who were studying or just
relaxing, and it would also motivate me too as well.
The EA for another student sat down with him and helped him fill out the applications needed
for school which also affected his internal supportive factor of motivation;
Well, I am currently studying journalism, and one of the people that motivated me was
my actual journalism teacher. He helped jump-start my love for journalism and then my
senior teacher for the yearbook was also a big motivator helped me. He helped me fill out
stuff, fill out scholarship forms, and fill out financial aid. He helped me get the best I
could to get to college.
The EAs (mentor and coordinator for a student organization) for this student are one of the main
reasons why he remains in college;
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Student: Definitely. Definitely. My CCTP mentor and the coordinator, they are
both big motivators for me, really big help.
Interviewer: What types of things do they do that help motivate you or make you want
to continue and stick with it?
Student: Well, I would say my mentor, he's always like every time that we meet, he
is constantly finding ways for me to get out of situations. If I explain to
him that I'm doing badly in this class he will give me things that I can try
to try to get caught up with. Then for the coordinator, she tries to meet
with me, I do open up a lot to her about stuff. So, she helps me get through
a lot and they are big reasons that I'm still here at the university.
For another student, when he was doubting being in college, his EA (coordinator for a student
organization) assured him that he belonged, “she gave me advice, and she assured me.” This
student’s coordinator from a student organization contributed to this student’s well-being and
sense of validation and that someone cared for him as illustrated in the next quote;
The coordinator, helped me feel validated. And I’d say only one of my professors, was
also super adamant that I should feel proud of being here. He told my entire class that we
should all feel proud of getting here and being here. And I do not think any other
professor validated, they had no say in the matter.
This same coordinator encouraged this student to not give up when he was thinking about
dropping out of college to help care for his mother’s worsening medical health. This coordinator
helped this student decide to stay in college. This external supportive factor focuses on this
student’s academics and well-being, “the other consultant focuses more on mental health, but she
also focuses on academics and also focuses on my wellness; so she is the one that does
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everything.” For this student, these advisors greatly encouraged and motivated him
psychologically and academically, to not give up, and to remember his positive qualities and
what he can do;
They kept encouraging me to keep pursuing and that because my brother had been on that
scholarship years before, they told me what he had been talking about me and how he had
been saying that he knows that I am smart and that he knows that I’m going to do great
things. So, hearing all that motivation is what encouraged me to keep going.
These coordinators and advisors embody the definition of empowerment agents (Stanton-
Salazar, 2011). Another student, one professor took great care with this student to get to know
what she was interested in doing which also, in turn, affected her well-being;
My professor 100% made me feel like he cared. We made an appointment to talk about
the scholarships for studying abroad. And that appointment when we spoke, he talked to
me less about that and asked me more about myself like what do I want to do? Asking
questions about my personal life, who am I, my family, and it was all genuine, like he
was genuinely trying to help me because you cannot help a person until you know who
they are. So, I think that him taking the time to do that, meant a lot to me because nobody
else ever really did that, especially because they are all busy, but he took the time to do
that, and many times he is also busy, so I appreciate it.
For this student, her professor helped her during very difficult times in her life. These external
supportive factors, EAs have greatly impacted her psychologically, motivationally, and
academically;
I give so much credit to my teachers and my principal in high school that helped me so
much. I could never, ever thank them enough for getting me to college. Without them, I
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would not have made it. And now that I am here, I am not taking that for granted. Like I
am here, and I am going to put in the work, and I am going to make everything worth it. I
do not want to disappoint anybody, my parents, my family, professors, teachers, and
everybody who helped me along the way. I owe it to them and even more so to myself to
make something great out of myself.
For this student, her instructors not only motivated and encouraged her, but they also helped her
with her future projects as well, they were very supportive. As Stanton-Salazar (2011) discuss,
EAs go beyond the protocol laid out for their job positions, and as these interviews illustrate,
some of these EAs completely played out Stanton-Salazar’s (2011) definition of an EA. For this
student, her EAs made a profound impact on her psychologically that she applied to her
mentality and drive;
My Spanish teacher from high school whom I loved so much. I went to her house. I love
her. I love her family. That’s from high school, but yeah, she just had this poster on her
board that said [In Spanish], like are you happy? Then it has an arrow that goes to like the
answer yes or no. Then it’s like okay [In Spanish], or like [In Spanish] like change
something, and then [In Spanish], like keep going the same way, so that was a poster that
she kept in her room, but I just did not forget it and I thought it was great advice because
it is true. Like, if you are not happy, go change something, or sit there and feel sorry for
yourself. If you are happy, well, keep doing what you are doing; you are doing the right
thing. It is kind of common sense, but I think we overlook very common-sense things in
life because we zoom too far in rather than like broadening out our perspectives.
Again, these are external supportive factors, EAs, having a positive impact on a student’s
internal supportive factor, motivation.
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For another student, his EA was inspirational, helping him realistically look at what he
needed to do to become a professional. His EA was invested in him, taking the time to look at all
the details in his file and advising him, this student called this “supportive love.” This type of EA
helped motivate this student and provided practical guidance during his college journey. This
student has people that have helped him transition from his senior year of high school and
continue to provide psychological support, especially when he is feeling discouraged;
We have mentors, but mainly, my mentors. I have a guy who inspires me a lot. His name
is Dr. Q. He's a dean of the university. I met him in my senior year, and he saw how
dedicated I was, so he decided to mentor me and provide everything that I needed as a
supporting factor. So, I tend to ask him a lot of questions, and when I am feeling down
low, he is the first person who knows what's going on with me. The second one is a
similar situation. His name is Dr. X. I used to work with him in a lab and he moved, and
when he was moving down there, I thought that I was losing everything. I was losing his
support. It was going to be a long distance, but we became close because we Facetime a
lot. He sends me all these emails, and quotes, inspirational quotes, and, “Hey, you got
this, buddy,” and stuff like that. So those two people are here in my wing, somehow.
Safe Positive Physical Spaces
This section takes into consideration systems theory; specifically, the person in the
environment concept (Robbins et al., 2019) and how these safe positive physical places affected
them psychologically and academically. As evidenced in the data, students consistently accessed
safe places like their dorms, libraries, places of work, gyms, lobbies of certain associations,
student mental health centers, going back home to visit their families for support, going to their
apartments, and going to online communities for support. These are physical and virtual places
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where students go to feel safe and supported. Sometimes they go to these places alone and
sometimes they are connecting with other students and EAs there. Sometimes these students can
socialize in safe places here and get help psychologically and academically. Again, these are
external supportive factors, that are positively impacting these students. These positive
supportive factors (safe positive physical spaces) contribute to students’ well-being. It was
observed that these safe positive physical places had a positive impact on students’
psychologically, and socially, and in the end, also motivated them to do better
academically. These places had supportive EAs, supervisors, and peers that helped students with
academic counsel and psychological support. Sometimes these are yearly events or weekly
events that are held on campus or in safe physical spaces where students get all types of help
socially, academically, psychologically, and sometimes practical help like how to geographically
locate and access what they need to live comfortably. The following are specific quotations to
give the reader a good idea of how students are accessing these safe positive physical spaces.
For one student, she had such a positive experience in a building associated with a
student organization that not only did she flourish in it psychologically and academically, but she
also became a representative of it to voice other student needs and to create events to help them;
I am no longer a freshman representative and I am now the vice president. So, that is
good, we are doing good. We are trying to, again, create more awareness and create more
events and more welcoming spaces for other people, we have been trying to create more
meetings, like safe meetings. So, we would have like a study night, where we can all just
talk about what has been going on, or what we feel like has been what people are
struggling with and we also incorporate that with studying.
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These safe positive physical spaces are places where students can deeply connect socially,
psychologically, academically, and culturally. These are very holistic experiences meeting a lot
of the student’s needs at thorough and deep levels;
It was titled a game night, but it was also like a study night. So, we played games that had
to do with the Black community or the colored community. So, it is just like a safe space
where people could come together and do homework if they didn't feel like playing a
game, so they just like to learn more about what is happening. I feel like in those times
there's also a time to be aware of situations that are happening, and also talk about your
situation and feel like you have a place to talk about it where no one can judge.
For students with immigrant backgrounds who have to create new relationships in a new country,
a new state, and a new city, these are the only places where they can have such valuable
connections that help them psychologically, socially, and academically. This same student
became a representative of student needs, creating events that would help students
psychologically and academically. She was able to summarize the different safe positive physical
places students can access to get support psychologically and academically;
Use your resources. Student organizations. We also have the library and university
tutoring, and we have student associations, which are also a really good resource for a
studying place or support. And we have the university mental health place. I would say
just mental health and wellness, you need to take care of yourself and also have planned
out your time, too, so you don’t get overwhelmed.
This same student also benefits from the student association office academically, emotionally,
and socially, “Student association, I like going there in general. It was nice because we would
have all these students who were studying or just relaxing, and it would also motivate me too as
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well.” This is another example of how an external supportive factor can increase internal
supportive factors; specifically, safe positive physical spaces with peers increase psychological,
emotional, and social wellness, and academic motivation to succeed. Another student also had a
positive experience coming onto the university campus that positively affected him emotionally;
Something else that made me feel as if I was validated. I think it was just how friendly
overall the atmosphere was. Because when I went to the student organization fair on one
of the beginning days, all of the upperclassmen were super friendly, super nice, and super
welcoming. So, I think everybody’s attitude was mostly positive, and I felt validated
because of that.
For this student, these types of experiences can contribute to his staying at college in addition to
other factors. Another safe positive physical place for this student is also his home containing
family support;
My house would be the main place because it kind of symbolizes and represents home
and my place of comfort. And, I guess my room, too, because, most of the time, I am
studying, like, here on my dining room table, and I am always studying here, or
sometimes in the basement, wherever I feel comfortable. And then, I spend time relaxing
in the living room, and it is only until the end of the night when I go to my bedroom and
lay on my bed. And I guess that is where most of my stresses fell away because at this
point, I have come to recognize that place as a place where I feel comfortable and where I
should not be stressing a lot of things and I should just be sleeping. And, I guess sleeping
is comforting to me.
This is an example of a student having a safe, positive physical space and being able to access
and use it as needed.
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For another student, a summer boot camp helped her navigate her 1st year of college, as
she explains in the following quote:
I joined a summer boot program they had and they gave us a tour, of what to expect, I got
enrolled and they kind of helped me as a first-generation student, they kind of helped me
like navigate through this whole freshman year of college and I have had a really good
experience so far.
For this student, it mattered to her to figure things out as a freshman in college and the places she
went to had EAs that greatly supported her and helped her;
The university had a welcoming community and because of that I felt connected to
everyone, some people I would say through my freshman year and as someone who has
no experience in college as we all did, but some of us have like family members you can
ask for help, but I did not have that so all I had was like the student organization and like
just the general advisors and teachers just to go to and they were really helpful so because
of them I was able to figure things out as a freshman. I would describe them as a very
welcoming community.
This student lives at home with her family but explains in detail how much of an impact it makes
on her to be on a university campus that is welcoming. She explains how this external supportive
factor has a positive impact on her academic motivation;
I think that matters to a lot of people because if you’re in an environment where you feel
like you’re alone it kind of disturbs your peace and I don’t know how to say it, but you
just cannot sit down and focus because you always have this thinking of I do not belong
here and it will be hard for you to figure things out. But if you have this sense of like you
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belong there some things just become comfortable to you and you will gain this
confidence and can do things that you are maybe not used to doing.
For another student, a safe positive physical space was her dorm building with her friends;
I feel like I do belong when I am with my roommate and my friends. [Laughter] Yeah,
because that is when, like, I have fun with them and then I get time to spend on these
things with them and then have time for myself, too.
Being in this safe positive physical space with her friends contributes to her psychological well-
being. For another student, a building associated with a student organization provided everything
he needed from socialization to a free cup of coffee;
In that building no one, it is like there are a lot of students that are in there and most of us
are immigrants, you know, and we have all these people from different backgrounds and
stuff. So whenever I'm in that building I feel like we all trying to make it, you know, like
everyone is so dedicated and so passionate about dedication and we just trying to, we are
trying our very, very best. So, in that building whenever I am in there, I know that
whatever I need is going to be there.
Again, for these students with immigrant backgrounds, these places are important for them at all
levels because they must create these types of connections for themselves. They are new to the
country and do not have a social support network that they can utilize psychologically and
academically. These places that are associated with student organizations have EAs that want to
see him “succeed.” These are important places and people for this student that he can go to as
needed;
And that's why I feel like I get all the support that I need. And these are not just to be two
rings or just like having that emotional support or have someone to talk to, but they are
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just so friendly and so welcoming that you see them and you’re like if I needed somebody
to talk to you will be the one to talk to.
For this same student, the library and the gym are other external supportive factors that also
contribute to increasing his internal supportive factors like academic motivation. These places
are opportunities to socialize and get support;
At the gym, I get to be motivated. I see people and we talk, and they say, “Hey, don’t you
have homework? Why are you here?” And stuff like that. That leads up to another thing
and I just feel so motivated when I’m in the gym because I’m not only working on my
gains and stuff, just lifting the muscles, but I’m also focusing my mental health and stuff
like that. So at first, I thought I was the only person who goes to the gym for that
particular reason, and when I started talking to people and they are, “Oh, I have five, six,
seven homeworks and this is the only place that I feel like I am able to focus on me, clear
up my mind before I can go and do some other stuff.” So, I like that supporting system,
the being motivated for my classmates and my fellow friends that I have made in the
gym. And the library, in particular, besides chilling, and reading books, and grabbing that
coffee, and just relaxing before you start studying, there is not so much goes in there
because once you start seeing all these people that are studying and stuff, it kind of
triggers you and pressures you a little bit to be, oh, maybe I should be doing the same
thing, too. But I like that, too, because it kind of pushes me to be better somehow.
Similarly, for another student, the library is a valuable place for her mentally and academically;
The south part of the library now is my favorite place to go. Because there are multiple
places that I could go to just study or sit down and relax because it’s quiet. And I get
some peace of mind.
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For this same student, going home to her family and pets is also a positive emotionally
supportive place for her to go to. For another student going home to see her family was also
helpful to her well-being and mental health.
Discussion
These next two paragraphs briefly summarize the findings presented in Chapter Four.
Chapter Five follows with a deeper discussion about study findings and offers related
recommendations.
The Relationship Between External and Internal Supportive Factors
It was observed that when a student had an external supportive factor, they exhibited an
increase in their levels of confidence. For example, friends that accepted them made them feel
confident and that they belonged. Another relationship between the factors was how external
factors like family support and institutional empowerment agents could also contribute to
increased levels of motivation to attend college and to get a college degree. It was observed for
some of the students that their external supportive factors like their family and institutional
empowerment agents affected their motivation to succeed.
Another important relationship that was observed was how students utilized their internal
supportive factors; for example, their proactivity, self-awareness, and assertiveness when they
saw an area of need and reached out to external supportive factors, like advisors. In turn, these
advisors supported them.
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Chapter Five: Discussion
The purpose of this study was to explore how BIPOC students at three midwestern
universities navigate their well-being during their 1st-year transition to college. For this
dissertation study, data were analyzed to answer the following research questions:
1. How do at-promise students at three midwestern universities navigate their well-being
during their 1st-year transition to college and what conditions facilitate their well-
being?
2. What barriers do at-promise students face in experiencing well-being?
Data were collected through longitudinal one-on-one interviews with 10 students. The data
collected aimed to capture important information on their overall experiences navigating their 1st
year of college. This study highlighted data about how the students interacted with their external
supportive factors, like family members and institutional empowerment agents, and how they
were able to activate internal supportive factors like coping skills and relationship management
skills. Through interviews, student participants shared their personal experiences on the impact
the external and internal supportive factors had on their well-being. The complexity of BIPOC
college students’ psychological, social, and academic developmental experiences was captured.
Study findings supported much of what was found in the literature on student interactions with
empowerment agents. The purpose of this chapter is to highlight key findings, as well as present
implications and recommendations for future practice, including practical strategies that
educational practitioners could utilize to enhance these interactions with BIPOC students to
support their well-being. The chapter concludes with suggestions for future research.
Key Findings
Process of Cultivating Internal Supportive Factors
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A question that arose from the analyses of these interviews was how to cultivate internal
supportive factors. In applying systems theory (Robbins et al., 2019) students can have their
internal supportive factors nurtured by their family and school systems made up of authoritative
figures like their caregivers, teachers, and school staff. According to systems theory; specifically,
the person in the environment concept (Robbins et al., 2019) this study was able to reflect how
nurturing, warm, supportive, consistent, and structured environments can help cultivate students’
internal supportive factors but something that challenges these theories is that sometimes in
environments that are deficient of warmth, nurturance, support, structure, and consistencies
students are forced to strengthen their internal supportive factors to simply survive, remain
socially engaged, interact with others, and create the relationships they need to succeed in life.
The Impact of External Supportive Factors and the Process of Cultivating Internal
Supportive Factors
According to systems theory (Robbins et al., 2019) and Erikson’s psychosocial
developmental theory (Erikson, 1968), adolescents and young adults can develop skills and tasks
in supportive, nurturing, and structured environments. According to systems theory, context
plays a role in healthy development (Larkin et al., 2014), and this relationship was observed in
the student interviews in how the students’ family support positively impacted their well-being.
It was evident how some of the students accessed the external supportive factor of their family
homes by visiting them when they needed emotional support, academic support, and financial
support. In this study, I also noted that the students were at various levels of developing their
internal supportive factors, this specifically illustrates how Erikson (1968) describes how
adolescents are attaining their social skills and academic skills at different ages and stages in
their lives. The other finding that was observed from the student data was that some students had
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external supportive factors that helped to nurture their internal supportive factors and in turn the
internal supportive factors were strengthened, compared to other students who did not have as
strong internal supportive factors who were observed to be more isolated.
Taking Into Consideration How Internal and External Factors Contribute to a Student’s
Well-Being Status
Some students had external supportive factors and internal supportive factors. Some
students were able to connect with their external supportive factors and “rejuvenate” themselves;
specifically, the student who reported this was aware of needing emotional support and knew
that if she went back home to her family (her external supportive factor) she would get her needs
met. It was also observed how students were able to use their internal supportive factors to help
improve their situations socially, psychologically, and academically. Each student has a story
filled with external and internal supportive factors. Each student has barriers they have had to
overcome. Students continued their higher educational journey despite facing hardships. Some
had to take a semester off or two or change colleges, but they continued. As illustrated above,
they are supported in this journey by a wide range of factors: family, significant others, inner
strengths, inner wisdom, institutional agents, and safe spaces. While these observations present
the detailed and complex experiences of 10 college students, these are limited observations
regarding generalizability to the broader population. The development of young adults is very
intricate and complex. The students observed in this study displayed self-awareness and were
able to make decisions for their well-being, be it going home to safe and nurturing settings full of
family support, going to safe, positive physical spaces, practicing self-care activities, trying new
strategies to improve their grades, practicing boundaries to protect their well-being, and reaching
out to people that were going to help them psychologically, academically, and professionally.
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Reflection on Findings
The analysis illustrates how students used their internal supportive factors to access their
external supportive factors; specifically, students activated their internal supportive factors and
activated their external supportive factors, which in turn increased the levels of their internal
supportive factors. The other relationship that was noted was that external supportive factors
caring and supportive interactions with empowerment agents, had positive impacts on students.
What was also observed was that internal supportive factors also had relationships with each
other; for example, a student’s level of motivation increased their coping skills when used in
combination with their self-awareness skill.
Another example of how internal supportive factors impacted each other was when a
student used their self-awareness skill, saw that they needed social connections, and used their
relationship management skills in their workplaces and student associations. Again, all of this
contributed to their well-being. For some students, certain internal supportive factors are more
developed than others. When this was observed; specifically, with the internal supportive factor,
the relationship management area was more developed, this in turn helped this student in
improving his relationship with his advisor, an EA, who was an external supportive factor. What
was also observed was that the more developed certain internal supportive factors, like
relationship management skills, the better relationships there were with their external supportive
factors, EAs. Analysis showed that the stronger and more developed their relationship
management area was, the better students felt about themselves with their EAs and their
classmates, which were external supportive factors; showing how all of this contributed to their
well-being and their academic success.
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The data gathered in this study suggest that students have a variety of internal and
external supportive factors they have the potential to access and activate when the needs
arise. The list of external supportive factors that contribute to student well-being includes family
and empowerment agents. The list of internal supportive factors includes coping skills, time
management skills, relationship management skills, emotional intelligence, etc. Data showed that
some students were more developed regarding making the executive decision to activate their
supportive factors. Other students were in the process of learning how to develop and access
their supportive factors. Throughout the study, students valued care that allowed them to feel
supported by their family and empowerment agents. Many of the students in this study shared
stories of their struggles and were met with care and support from their families and institutional
agents.
The Relationship Between Internal Supportive Factors and External Supportive Factors
According to systems theory, person in the environment and biopsychosocial concepts
(Robbins et al., 2019), and Erikson’s developmental theory (Erikson, 1968), family settings, and
school settings can provide warm, nurturing, supportive, structured, and consistent environments
that will help children and adolescents develop psychologically, socially, and academically. In
this study, data from 10 young adults illustrate that developmental internal supportive factors
vary substantially across students. Training can be given to university staff that will teach them
how to help students feel more supported and in turn, students may stay in the university and
continue in their psychological, social, and academic development with a positive trajectory.
Students identified different sources of external support. Some of the students felt
supported in their family units and university campuses; others had some challenges in their
family and university campuses. Students varied in their ability to activate their emotional
112

intelligence skills and create healthier environments and relationships for themselves. Two
students illustrated how one can move away from families with unhealthy boundaries and
another student illustrated how relationship skills can be used to improve their university
experience.
Students greatly benefitted from their interactions with the empowerment
agents. Students were able to get the support they needed at all levels from these institutional
agents. Students had meaningful interactions with institutional agents in which they felt
supported and motivated to academically succeed. Students felt that these institutional agents
were invested in their success.
Discussion on Supportive Factors Conducive to Student Well-Being
Empowerment agents can play an important role in fostering the motivation needed to
academically succeed in college (Stanton-Salazar, 2011). In the study empowerment agents
promoted motivation and confidence by showing genuine concern for their students, helping
them with applications and academic and professional counseling, initiating open conversations
with students, signaling their availability and accessibility, and supporting their
students. Empowerment agents made a conscious effort to engage with their students and learn
about who they are and where they came from.
This study makes valuable contributions to the growing body of research on the
interactions between students and educational staff. In analyzing student data and previous
literature on educational staff and student interactions, I was able to identify a pattern of actions
that contributed to students' feelings supported with motivation and confidence to academically
succeed. I divided these factors into broader categories; for example the external supportive
factors, like family support, empowerment agents, positive physical spaces (buildings associated
113

with student organizations, gyms, libraries, dorms), and peers positively impacting students’
internal supportive factors like motivation, time management, confidence, and study skills.
Secondly, the findings in this study demonstrated and reinforced the idea that educational staff
can play a significant role in supporting students and facilitating the development of motivation
and confidence that contributes to their well-being and success in college. Thirdly, given the
findings of my research, there is evidence to suggest that the interplay of educational staff with
students aided by training can assist in building motivation, positively impacting their well-
being, motivation, and confidence to succeed in college.
Discussion on Disparities
This study began with the quest to understand what contributes to the well-being of 10
BIPOC college students in three midwestern universities in the United States of America. This
study is not generalizable to the broader population due to its limited sample set. However, the
findings derived from analysis of the students’ experiences are transferable to other contexts.
The data showed that some BIPOC, low-income, immigration status, and first-generation
students were able to access sources of support internally and externally to improve their
psychological, academic, and social situations. However, one question that arose from the
findings is what can be done for BIPOC, low-income, immigration status, and first generation
students who are not able to access support internally and externally to improve their
psychological, academic, and social situations. Lerner et al., (2021) proposes two approaches to
address students not being able to access what could potentially help them in school
academically, psychologically, and socially.
The first approach is to start using theoretical models that “illuminate what is adaptive
and positive within toxic environments and, as well, point to strengths in individuals and to
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community assets for enhancing thriving in such settings” (p. 1128). With this approach,
practitioners could explore what strengths students have and help nurture them; for example,
motivation and confidence could be enhanced with cognitive behavioral therapy approaches and
practitioners could connect students with resources that would give them more opportunities
academically, professionally, and financially. The second approach Lerner et al., (2021) suggests
is having a “focus on social justice can advance understanding of the impacts of systemic racism
and health, educational, and economic inequities on development and, as well, on the ways in
which specific individual context relations can promote thriving in these settings” (p. 1128).
With this type of approach, practitioners would be able to see how systemic racism continues to
affect minoritized students and take on a stronger stance of aid towards students and advocate for
their needs academically, socially, psychologically, and financially. Finally, the third approach
that can be taken is learning how to nurture within educational staff a critical consciousness
(Freire, 1993), defined as the ability to perceive and interrogate the social, political, and
economic forms of oppression that shape one’s life and to take collective action against such
elements of society (or social structure). Stanton-Salazar (2011) takes this definition and puts it
into action with his recommendations on how to train educational staff that simply refer students
to resources to creating educational staff that are capable of making positive changes in the
world with their students by empowering them.
Combining Lerner et al.’s (2021) and Stanton-Salazar’s (2011) theoretical perspectives
offers a social justice-oriented approach where an empowerment agent can take into
consideration the oppressive systems minoritized youth have to navigate and offer guidance as to
how to help empower them to succeed academically and psychologically. According to Stanton-
Salazar (2011), these empowerment agents already know what resources are available to students
115

on campus and they can act as bridges linking them appropriately to the resources, they need to
be able to succeed academically. Furthermore, these empowerment agents (Stanton-Salazar,
2011) are able to take stock of the student strengths/assets and needs and link them appropriately
to resources that will help them grow and even transform and improve their situations
academically. Stanton-Salazar (2011) and Lerner et al.’s (2021) recommendations are a response
to the oppression that continues to affect students of color. The gaps continue for students of
color regarding them not being able to access the mental health services they sometimes need as
covered in the literature review in Chapter Two and as presented by the data findings in Chapter
Four. Stanton-Salazar’s (2011) and Lerner et al.’s (2021) recommendations offer a response to
potentially oppressive institutional and social contexts and a call for social justice. Relatedly,
practical recommendations that can be used by practitioners in educational institutions to better
the psychological and educational experiences BIPOC students will be discussed in the next
sections of this chapter.
Implications for Policy and Practice
Study data suggest that educational staff can benefit from having structured formal
training and increased socialization with campus partners to work with at-promise, first-
generation, and BIPOC students (Melguizo et al., 2021). Multicultural, competent training can be
given to staff to teach them how to have a humble approach to different cultures, races,
ethnicities, sexual orientations, genders, social classes, and students with varying immigration
statuses (Wing Sue et al., 2016). The training for university staff could also take into
consideration the complexities of college student development being sensitive to the varying
stages of development they might be in socially, academically, and psychologically. In addition,
Brown (2020) recommends having case managers available to connect students to the mental
116

health resources they might need if their college campuses are not able to provide the mental
health counseling services by referring them to community agencies that will be able to meet
their mental health needs. The detailed information from the interviews and analysis is helpful
for educational institutions because the training can take into consideration how to provide
specialized training to help support students as they attempt to get connected to the mental health
services they might sometimes need.
In order to move the needle to make progress in improving staff and student
relationships, especially among those from disadvantaged backgrounds, the practice should
include more formal training in enhancing staff-student interactions and creating a college
environment where students feel supported. As this study illustrated, it is important to have
teaching that is student-centered and meets the students’ emotional and academic needs-a finding
that resonates with validation theory (Rendon, 1994). This study showed how students greatly
benefited from their instructors, advisors, and mentors when they received their time, support,
and help academically and psychologically. These students’ levels of motivation and confidence
increased when they received the full impact of the support their empowerment agents gave
them. The literature that was reviewed in Chapter Two regarding empowerment agents (Stanton-
Salazar, 2011) also showed how these relationships provided students with a positive college
experience. The results of the study very much align with what was found in the literature and
reinforce the idea that supporting students is an important action that instructors and university
staff could take to contribute to a college student’s experience (Stanton-Salazar, 2011).
Nurturing External Supportive Factors
There are several implications for practice that higher education leaders, faculty, and staff
can utilize from the findings of this study. Ultimately, these findings and their implications can
117

be helpful for those interested in improving at-promise student college experiences at all levels,
academically and psychologically. It was shown by the data that those empowerment agents that
spent time and care with students on practical needs, academic needs, social needs, and
psychological needs had the greatest supportive impact on students. A practical change that
could be used by university administration is to increase the salaries of college staff and
instructors to spend more quality time with students. The data showed that students appreciated
the time instructors and staff took to help them academically and psychologically and sometimes
this extra time is in addition to work responsibilities and time. A salary increase might motivate
staff to spend more quality time with the students. The data also showed that when these
empowerment agents provide this type of support (phone calls, meetings, practical help with
applications, psychological support, extra time out of their job protocol), which is practical and
attentive to student needs, this impacts students’ internal factors like the motivation and
confidence to succeed in college. As already discussed in Chapter Four what these empowerment
agents were doing is exactly what Stanton-Salazar (2011) defines as individuals in places of
authority in educational institutions that positively impact an individual’s educational
experience.
A Culture of Care
Empowerment agents such as staff and instructors play a key role in developing a culture
of care. Educational staff can support students by providing academic counseling, referrals to
academic and financial programs, and practical help like helping students fill out applications
needed for these programs. When students can utilize these resources, they are better positioned
to enhance their ability to advance academically.
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Providing supportive services for students and motivating them to succeed in college is
not the sole responsibility of the educational staff. A collective and collaborative effort with
academic and student affairs professionals and faculty can assist in ensuring a supportive and
motivating campus environment because as literature shows there is a positive relationship
between a student’s positive well-being and their academic outcomes (Melguizo et al., 2020).
This study showed how and when students received support from institutional staff through
CCPTs, they were impacted positively emotionally and academically. Empowerment agents have
the unique ability to influence how students socialize with the greater campus community and
the degree to which they are aware of support services (Stanton-Salazar, 2011). Creating and
sustaining a culture on campus in which students feel they are supported and cared for is
paramount because as this study illustrated when the students felt supported this impacted how
motivated they were to succeed in college. The study showed that students were at varying stages
of development with their coping skills, relationship management skills, study skills, and time
management skills, and if these caring types of environments are nurtured using the existing
literature and findings of this study student internal supportive factors can be strengthened. The
study also showed that all the students had barriers but they were all able to continue with their
college journey utilizing internal and external supportive factors to help them psychologically,
financially, and academically; this supported and illustrated what literature has also already
shown in how powerful motivation is when predicting college student success (Martin et al.,
2014). The implications for practice here can be for future consideration of encouraging students
to use their internal and external support factors. Students in this study were at varying stages of
developing their internal supportive factors, some had been using them for longer periods and
some were barely starting to practice them.
119

Recommendations for Further Research
Future studies should be conducted to expand on the findings of this study. First, this
study was limited in time and participants. While the findings provided helpful insights into the
development of college students and how they are navigating their 1st-year transition to college,
future studies might examine how internal and external supportive factors can be nurtured at
higher rates of development. This study reinforces the idea that quality relationships between
educational staff and family members with students can be an essential part of the successful
educational experience empowering students to transform and develop at all levels academically,
psychologically, and socially.
Future studies should also consider other CCPTs in higher education in different campus
contexts and with higher numbers of participants. This dissertation study only focused on 10
BIPOC students from three midwestern universities in the United States. It would be interesting
to see how other students are experiencing their 1st year of college in other parts of the country
and to see what could be done to improve their psychological and academic experiences.
Conclusion
This study investigated how 10 at-promise students at three midwestern universities in
the United States of America navigated their well-being during their 1st-year transition to
college, what barriers at-promise students faced in experiencing well-being, and what conditions
helped facilitate at-promise students’ well-being. Given the existing research on mental health
and the support, students can get from their university campuses this study’s findings about
CCPTs and the positive impact empowerment agents had on student experiences are important
for future research and practice; specifically, future studies might examine how internal and
external supportive factors can be nurtured at higher rates of development and higher educational
120

institutions can implement workshops on helping their staff become empowerment agents. The
findings showed how powerful of an impact a caring and invested empowerment agent can have
on students and their well-being and even on their motivation to continue their college journeys.
The findings also showed how the development of individuals psychologically, socially, and
academically is complex. Colleges and universities provide unique opportunities where students
can learn and practice their coping skills, relationship management skills, and time management
skills. But most importantly students can learn about themselves and what is important for them
in life for their careers and relationships as they can learn how to build healthy relationship skills
and productive study habits. The amazing stories the students shared also presented how students
can transform during their college experience, with their stories of motivation, wisdom, support,
and love.

121

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Appendix A: Student Interview Protocol
The following document is the interview protocol that was used to interview the 10
students from the three midwestern universities in the United States of America longitudinally in
the fall of 2021.
Cohort 1 Student Protocol: November 2021
Focus of the interview: The overarching goal of the student interviews is to understand
how the psychosocial and academic success outcomes of at-promise students change over time
and relate to their program engagement and other student experiences. The goal of this particular
interview is to explore 3 psychosocial constructs during students’ transition to college and two
qualitative paper ideas around academic self-efficacy and community cultural wealth.

These
interviews will last 1-hour.
Section 1. Introductions and Rapport Building (10-minutes)
1. Tell me about your decision to attend [campus].
2. Tell me a little more about who you are and your identity. So, said another way, if
your best friend were describing you, what would they say?
3. If you could use one song to sum up your life since coming to college, what would it
be and why?
Section 2. Psychosocial Constructs During College Transition (20-minutes). Three
constructs of focus: (a) belonging, (b) validation, and (c) mattering. These questions were
measured on the survey and are provided in the participant Excel spreadsheet. Bear in mind the
scores on these constructs (where available) when asking the interview questions. A primary
goal of these questions is to gather data to help explain factors that shape the development of
these constructs during students’ transition to college.
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Thank you for your responses on the recent survey we conducted. I am going to ask you a
few follow-up questions about your transition to college and how you are adjusting to college
life.
1. Thinking about your adjustment to college the first few weeks, how strongly did you
feel a sense of belonging and connection to others here at [campus]?** Why? How
has your sense of belonging changed since the beginning of the semester, if at all?
Describe an experience that affected your sense of belonging during your transition to
college and why.
2. During the first few weeks of college, to what extent did you feel cared about
personally and like your success mattered to others at [campus]?** Why? How has
that feeling changed since the beginning of the semester, if at all? Describe an
experience that affected your feelings about how much you and your success mattered
to others and why.
3. Can you describe an experience you’ve had since coming to college where someone
did or said something that made you feel like you are capable of succeeding in
college? Describe the experience and explain why it had that effect. Can you describe
an experience where someone made you feel like you personally have what it takes to
succeed in college?
**Check the participant Excel sheet first to see if the student has already reported how
strongly they felt a sense of belonging or mattering in college on the survey. Not all participants
will have a score. If the student already has a score, we already have information about how
strongly they felt belonging and/or the extent to which they felt like they mattered and don’t need
to ask again. In those cases, say:
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• [For belonging] “Thank you for sharing information on the survey you took recently
about your connections with others on campus. I wanted to follow up about how
strongly you felt a sense of belonging during your transition to college and what
affected your sense of belonging.” Then proceed with the rest of the line of
questioning noted above.
• [For mattering] “You shared information on the survey about the extent to which you
felt cared about by others on campus and like your success mattered to others. I
wanted to follow up on that to learn more about what affected your sense that others
cared about your success.” Then proceed with the rest of the line of questioning
noted above
• [For validation] Ask the question noted above as is.
Section 3. Qualitative Paper Ideas (30-minutes): Academic Self-efficacy (15-minutes).
Goal is to answer the following research questions. How do low-income students define
academic success? How do they understand and experience academic self-efficacy (i.e. their
belief in their capabilities to succeed academically)? What experiences shape their academic
self-efficacy?
1. What does it mean to be a good student in college? How did you come to that
understanding?
2. For you personally, what does it mean to be academically successful in college? Tell
me a little more about how you came to that understanding?
3. How confident do you feel about your ability to achieve your definition of academic
success during college? Why? Has your confidence changed over the semester?
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[Probe for specific experiences during college that have affected their confidence in
their ability to achieve academic success.]
4. What strengths do you have that you believe will help you achieve your academic
goals in college? Do you have strengths that help you succeed academically that you
feel aren’t recognized by others?
5. What have you learned from your home, community, and past experiences about
being academically successful? How confident are you that you can use what you’ve
learned to help you achieve your definition of academic success in college?
Community Cultural Wealth/Understanding Low-income Students Experiences &
Strengths. (15-minutes). Goal is to answer the following research question. Community cultural
wealth is designed with racially minoritized students in mind. What would a similar model look
like that centers low-income students?
1. One of the things that we are interested in this study is understanding how social class
shapes the experiences of students coming into college. When I say the term “social
class,” what comes to mind for you? If the student is uncertain, we might say
something like “social class is defined in a lot of different ways, I’m going to put a
list of different social class categorizations in the chat window. “
2. Can you please read through them and tell me which one most closely matches your
background?” Prompt: Could you tell me a little more about why you believe that is your
social class background?
• Lower-Class
• Working-Class
• Lower Middle-Class
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• Middle-Class
• Upper Middle-Class
• Upper Class
3. Social class is often defined through factors such as parents’ or primary caregivers’
income, education, and occupation. Thinking about your own social class background, can you
share how each of those might apply for you?
• How would you describe your parents’ or primary caregivers’ income?
• How would you describe your parents’ or primary caregivers’ education?
• How would you describe your parents’ or primary caregivers’ occupation/job?
4. How do you think your social class has impacted your experience getting to college?
Your transition to [institution] over the past few months? What are other personal
experiences or identities that you hold that have been impactful for you as you
transitioned to [institution]?
5. When you think about coming to [institution] and transitioning in, can you think
of a skill set, strengths, or experiences related to your social class that has helped you
navigate that process? What was it? How did it impact your experiences?
Wrap Up: Thank you for participating in this interview. Can you confirm your email with
me? Then we will get your $40 gift card sent to you.
There may be opportunities to participate in future interviews. Would you be willing to
share with me your phone number in the event we wish to contact you for a future interview?
Note to interviewer: Document the phone number, if they provide permission, in the
excel spreadsheet. Document alternative email (if necessary) in the appropriate column in the
excel sheet for incentives. Preference is to use email we have on file.
136

Appendix B: Student Interview Protocol
The following document is the interview protocol that was used to interview the 10
students from the three midwestern universities in the United States of America longitudinally in
the Spring of 2022.
Cohort 1 Student Protocol: March/April 2022, 60-minutes
Introduction: Skim fall semester transcript for something significant they shared to follow
up on with the student.
1. What’s the best thing that has happened to you this semester?
2. What’s something that’s been really hard to navigate this semester?
3. Where on campus have you felt supported this semester?
4. Tell me something big or small you experienced this semester that made you feel
valued, understood, and respected? Like you’re capable of success in college?
• Be attentive to things they personally experienced, things they witnessed
happen to others, or things they saw or encountered (e.g., poster, email
message, sign). These may be big things or small things like being noticed in
class, someone
• remembering their name, being invited to sit at a lunch table, (etc.,)
5. Walk me through your day yesterday [during regular school week] from the time you
got up until you went to bed. (Take notes about the highlights and then ask for more
information about each aspect to create a narrative about their day.)
• Was that a typical day? If not, how was this different from a typical day?
• Be attentive to technology and social media use.
137

6. How has this semester been similar to last semester? How has it been different from
last semester?
7. Are you exploring majors currently or have you declared a major?
• [If exploring] Can you talk me through how you are going about choosing a
major? How confident do you feel about finding a major that is a good fit for
you? Are you connecting with any supports or individuals to guide you in
exploring and choosing a major?
• [If decided] When did you decide? How confident do you feel in your choice
of major? Are you connecting with any supports or individuals to guide you in
your plans for your major?
8. How does [knowing/exploring] your major influence your experiences in
college? Specifically consider academic confidence, wellbeing, and validation. The
quantitative data suggests that students with a declared major have higher levels of all
three as compared to undeclared/exploring students.
9. [If there’s time, but prioritize question 10 and 11] How prepared did you feel to
manage your finances coming to [campus]? What have your experiences been like
managing your finances so far?
10. What are your plans for this summer?
11. Is there anything I didn’t ask about in today’s interview that you think it is important
for me to know?

138

Appendix C: Student Interview Protocol
The following document is the interview protocol that was used to interview the 10
students from the three midwestern universities in the United States of America longitudinally in
the Summer of 2022.
Cohort 1 Student Protocol: August 2022, 60-minutes
Introduction: Skim spring semester transcript for something significant they shared to
follow up on with the student.
1. If you had to pick two highlights from your 1st year of college, what would they be
and why? How about two low points?
2. This past school year, we did some surveys asking students how confident they felt
that they were going to do well in their classes. Students said they came in with
higher levels of confidence at the start of the year, and at the end of the year, they said
they were less confident. Why do you think that might be?
• Look for connections to time use/management.
• Look for connections to their well being.
3. When you think back to your 1st year of college, who are the people you’d typically
turn to for support? What places would you turn to for support? Why?
4. At our first interview, I asked you how identities that you held were shaping your
college journey (e.g., race, gender). Looking back on your 1st year, how would you
answer that question now?
5. Now that it’s summer, has that changed? How so? Probe for whether they stay in
contact with their college peers and educators during the summer.
139

6. We’re interested in understanding what summer looks like for college students these
days. What has it looked like for you? What’s on your weekly to-do list?
• Probe for whether they are working, interning, volunteering, taking classes,
what their living situation is.
• Probe for how their to-do list has changed since the school year finished.
7. What has been the best part of your summer so far? What has been the most
challenging part? Is this summer what you thought it would be?
8. What is something you thought was important to do just for yourself this summer?
Why? Have you done it?
Wrap up: Campus specific questions [10 minutes]
9–10. Anything campus leads want to add to focus on campus specific topics.

Abstract (if available)

Abstract Postsecondary institutions hold great potential to cultivate students? well-being. Yet many postsecondary students experience negative well-being and struggle to find socio-emotional support on campus. This study explores the interplay between students and postsecondary institutions regarding well-being and is informed by the following:
1. How do at-promise students at three midwestern universities navigate their well-being during their 1st-year transition to college and what conditions facilitate their well-being?
2. What barriers do at-promise students face in experiencing well-being?
This study is designed as a qualitative exploratory interview study. Findings demonstrate that external student supportive factors like family support, instructors, advisors, counselors, mentors, and peers made positive contributions to at-promise student well-being as they navigated their 1st-year transition to college. Findings also demonstrated that at-promise students were at varying levels of development regarding their mobilization of internal student supportive factors; specifically, their skills of self-awareness, social awareness, relationship management, and coping skills. The analysis illustrated that at-promise students experienced a wide range of stressors and were able to utilize external and internal student-supportive factors to be able to continue with their college journeys. The findings showed how powerful of an impact a caring and invested empowerment agent can have on students and their well-being and even on their motivation to persist through college and graduate. Ultimately, data highlighted the complexities of the development of individuals psychologically, socially, and academically.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Rodriguez, Claudia Maria (author)

Core Title Postsecondary students, well-being, and sources of support

School Rossier School of Education

Degree Doctor of Education

Degree Program Educational Leadership

Degree Conferral Date 2023-08

Publication Date 08/03/2023

Defense Date 05/09/2023

Publisher University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag College students,OAI-PMH Harvest,postsecondary institutions,well-being

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Corwin, Zoe B. (committee chair), Andres, Mary (committee member), Andujo, Estela (committee member), Todorova, Ralitsa (committee member)

Creator Email cmr@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-oUC113296314

Unique identifier UC113296314

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Legacy Identifier etd-RodriguezC-12187

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Rodriguez, Claudia Maria

Internet Media Type application/pdf

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Source 20230803-usctheses-batch-1078 (batch), University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

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Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus, Los Angeles, California 90089, USA

Repository Email cisadmin@lib.usc.edu