Health and safety concerns during the COVID-19 pandemic required many face-to-face United States schools to suddenly shut their doors, moving classes to virtual learning environments. Amidst concerns of technology overuse, adolescents across the country saw dramatic increases in both personal screen time use and social isolation as they learned to navigate online schooling. Understanding the impact of the pandemic-related shutdowns upon adolescent well-being, learning, and social life is critical for designing effective online learning experiences, but research provides few insights from the adolescent perspective. This mixed methods study works to fill this gap by investigating adolescent needs and perceptions during the pandemic. The main questions asked are: To what extent does adolescent well-being during the pandemic differ from pre-pandemic well-being? What factors do adolescents view as influences upon their learning during the imposed shift to online schooling? What social changes and concerns do adolescents report during the pandemic? Twenty-one adolescents completed Likert scale surveys and participated in semi-structured one-to-one interviews. Results showed a significant decrease in positive affect and a significant increase in negative affect during the pandemic, suggesting a decline in well-being. The majority of participants reported high distractibility and noted the lure of entertaining technology, but also described their smartphones as “connecting” and “necessary”. Social interactions were a priority for all participants, but participants agreed that opportunities for social connectedness in online education were limited. The challenges of online learning, the importance of identifying and responding to student needs, and suggested strategies for online education are discussed.

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This research study examines the role of grit in the success of Kenyan immigrants in the United States. It gives an illustration as to why grit is more relevant than IQ in the accomplishment of long-term goals. It will also examine the importance of learning from a motivational point of view. Finally, it will investigate how Kenyan immigrants with grit handled challenging situations that they faced while in the United States and the positive outcomes that resulted after their decision to be passionate on their set goals. A qualitative approach was selected as the research design for this study using unstructured interviews. The research findings indicate that grit contributed to the success of the five Kenyan immigrants in the United States. Challenges that people face in life can lead to feelings of worthlessness and giving up on set goals. However, the grit predisposition present in all the five participants in the study enabled them to overcome their challenges as noted in the findings, and they all accomplished their set goals.

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This research study will examine the perceptions of graduate introvert students towards problem-based group work activities in the classroom. There is an emphasis into student-centered learning in higher education systems in today's world, and group-work activities are amongst the ways of having students active in the classroom. Results of this study will show that introverts compared to extroverts have negative group work experience. This study will show the importance of designing and structuring group work activities well to allow for all students regardless of their personalities to be able to be motivated towards group work activities and be able to retain concepts learned during student-centered learning activities. This study investigates how graduate introvert students perceive group work activities in the classroom. Personality test will be administered to ensure all participants fit into the study's description of an introvert. Qualitative approach was selected as the research design for this study using unstructured interview questions.