Although research shows college preparatory programs' effectiveness regarding academic achievement and college awareness, much less is known about whether programs affect college attendance and persistence. GEAR UP (Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs) and other college preparatory programs claim that this is a…

This study examined the messages perceived by adolescent girls with orphanhood to influence their sexual decision making. Participants were 125 students (mean age = 14.7 years), 54% of whom attended church schools in a rural district of eastern Zimbabwe. We collected and analyzed data using concept mapping, a mixed method approach that enabled the…

A concurrent mixed methods design, giving equal priority to both quantitative and qualitative methods, was used to investigate some of the factors that influence academic achievement of Native Hawaiian students in public schools in the state of Hawai'i. School-level instructional strategies, curricula, policies, and other variables that…

The flexibility of mixed methods research strategies makes such approaches especially suitable for multisite case studies. Yet the utilization of mixed methods to select sites for these studies is rarely reported. The authors describe their pragmatic mixed methods approach to select a sample for their multisite mixed methods case study of a…