Research
Our research is interdisciplinary and ever-changing. We believe in exploring real world problems, particularly those impacting our community. As such, our current projects frequently. Below is a description of some of our focus areas:
- Resilience in Children: This project examines resiliency, socialization, bullying behaviors, and school cohesiveness in school-aged children. Various projects are underway.
- Faculty Self-Care: This project examines faculty beliefs and behaviors related to self-care practices and workplace stress. Demands on educational professionals increased dramatically with the recent COVID Pandemic, prompting a perspective change for many. However, expectations, support, and self-care practices have often been in contrast with faculty career satisfaction and overall well-being.
- University Belongingness: This project investigates feelings of belongingness as well as academic success and retention. Sometimes referred to as university integration, this area of research is typically conducted in large university settings. Our research looks at various factors impacting student success in a small-medium sized, teaching-focused, minority-serving institution.
- Mastering College: This is an ongoing program evaluation study of a required first year course intended to prepare students for the university experience. Findings from this research influence program changes and provide valuable information about college preparedness, particularly of first-generation college students.
- Student Projects: These vary by term. Advanced research assistants (RAs) have the opportunity to propose new research. These projects are supervised by Dr. Cipra. RAs in this investigative role learn crucial skills in project design, coding, and presentation of work. A student project focused on adolescent career and life skills preparation is currently collecting data.