How Students Experience Faculty Responses to Academic Struggle

Abstract

Despite large investments of human and financial resources in college student success, the 6-year graduation rate for US public universities remains at approximately 60% (NCES, 2018). In an effort to understand faculty roles in mitigating and exacerbating student learning, we interviewed 50 students from two public universities in the US Mid-west about their experiences of academic struggle. Faculty behaviors that students identified as helping them persevere through academic struggle included patience with questions, approachability, and the ability to convey knowledge in multiple ways. We present implications for creating the conditions that increase professors' ability to help students.