This article presents the interview protocol refinement (IPR) framework comprised of a four-phase process for systematically developing and refining an interview protocol. The four-phase process includes: (1) ensuring interview questions align with research questions, (2) constructing an inquiry-based conversation, (3) receiving feedback on interview protocols, and (4) piloting the interview protocol. The IRP method can support efforts to strengthen the reliability of interview protocols used for qualitative research and thereby contribute to improving the quality of data obtained from research interviews.

The literature on first-generation college students largely focuses on the challenges and barriers they may experience in college. Yet, we do not have a clear understanding of who these students are as learners. To address this gap, this systematic review examines how scholars study and conceptualize first-generation college students as learners. We found the majority of the literature we reviewed conceptualized them as learners based on their academic performance and the influence of cultures on their learning. These two conceptualizations positioned first-generation college students against normative ways of learning, and in doing so promulgate an assimilation approach in higher education. We found a smaller body of literature that conceptualized first-generation college students as learners whose lived experiences, when connected to academic content, can contribute to their academic learning, advancement of disciplines, self-growth, and community development. We use this alternative view to provide recommendations for studying and working with first-generation college students.

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In this article, Milagros Castillo-Montoya and María Torres-Guzmán, two intergenerational Puerto Rican female scholars, use testimonios as a method for sharing funds of knowledge that may support and encourage emerging scholars’ efforts to critique, create, and expand on current educational theories, methods, and pedagogies. They draw on Chicana feminist epistemology to analyze their six-month charlas, informal conversations. They view their own Puerto Rican experiences from this lens and, in an effort to develop a Latina Epistemology Framework, expand the existing framework through a new dimension they refer to as lucha. They also put forth a model of research that furthers the use of testimonios as a mode of inquiry and as a process that may lead to mentorship in the academy for first-generation scholars.

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