Transforming the Experience of Nontraditional Students
by Shelby Luquet
“The goal is to identify specific strategies we can use to better support students who often feel invisible in higher education systems. This work addresses real-world problems, especially among students who do not follow a traditional educational path.” Dr. Kali Dunlap, an Assistant Teaching Professor and Advisor at the College of Professional and Continuing Studies has researched ways to improve nontraditional students’ experiences.
Dunlap’s work is inspired by her earlier experience as an academic advisor. Specifically, she reasearches what helps adult and nontraditional college students succeed in their academic pursuits. “These students are highly motivated but face unique challenges that aren’t always addressed by traditional higher education models.” Dunlap said. “I wanted to better understand the factors that support or hinder their persistence, not just from a policy perspective but from their lived experiences.”
She has surveyed hundreds of students and collected data on what can be done to improve their collegiate experience. “The goal is to identify specific strategies we can use to better support students who often feel invisible in higher education systems.” Dunlap said. She is dedicated to finding the source of academic inconsistency among the students she works with.
“While academic resources are important, my research found that the qualities of reliability, assurance, and empathy in advising relationships had the most significant impact on students’ educational journeys which ultimately leads to higher rates of persistence.” Dunlap said. Through her surveys she also found that “personalized advising and relationships with faculty and staff” are valued by students. In the long term, Dunlap hopes to help shift the higher education pathways for adult students by recognizing their skills and prioritizing their experiences.
Dunlap is inspired by the results of her research to keep improving student learning and experience. She is motivated to continue finding areas of improvement and has many goals for the future. “There’s still so much work to learn about how to design higher education systems that truly serve all learners.” Dunlap said. “Next, I plan to expand on my dissertation by publishing my findings and developing additional studies that explore success predictors in first - generation or fully online students.”
