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Legal education scholars have argued that law schools strategically use Students of Color for enrollment management purposes; they can admit more to meet admission targets, but they should not enroll so many that they need to open new course sections. As law school applications decline, we analyze enrollment panel data reported to the American Bar Association. We find that examining the intersection of race and gender matters for understanding the ways that law schools are strategic about diversity in enrollment management. For each group (e.g., Black women, White men), law schools balance higher enrollment in one year with lower incoming enrollment of that same group in the subsequent year, thereby working against the racial diversification of legal education and the legal profession. In some instances, higher enrollment in one group (e.g., Hispanic women) also leads to higher enrollment in the subsequent year among incoming students with the same race but different gender (e.g., Hispanic men). This analytical approach -- informed by intersectionality -- reveals that differential race x gender patterns would be overlooked in analyses that solely focused on race while not considering gender. Moreover, the results are generally robust across models examining both the number and percentage representation of incoming students. Finally, we find evidence that these balancing dynamics are sometimes more pronounced at law schools with higher median LSAT scores, which are typically most selective. We discuss implications for equity in legal education and future research directions for graduate and professional education.

Prior research has explored how international students' interactions with domestic students and with other international students predict their self-reported short-term outcomes, particularly in the context of the environmental challenges that international students may encounter. The present study builds upon this earlier work by using institutional data from dining hall meal swipe cards to measure interpersonal relationships and examine how these meal-indices from the first semester predict international students' subsequent credits earned, grades, retention, and graduation. Within a sample of 1,634 first-year international students, the results indicate that social networks with international students and with domestic students both predict postsecondary success outcomes; the findings are even significant when based on dining hall data measured at the end of students' first week of classes. The patterns vary somewhat across outcomes: meal-indices with both groups of students consistently predict international students' chances of graduation, relationships with international students are more consistently related to retention, and relationships with domestic students are more often associated with college GPA and credits earned.

While serving as a benchmark of 'world-class' universities, the global university rankings do not include the vast majority of universities. However, "Times Higher Education" developed a Japanese national university ranking table in 2017, which includes approximately 40% of all Japanese universities. This increased coverage of universities that students may consider can extend the influence of global ranking developers. This study examines the impact of the "Times Higher Education" Japan University Rankings on admissions outcomes from 2017-2019. The findings indicate that universities ranked outside of the top 100 in 2017 had an increased number of applicants and decreased acceptance rates in 2018 and 2019 when compared to unranked universities. Among the top 100 universities, a more favourable ordinal ranking in 2017 was associated with increased matriculation rates in 2018 and 2019. Thus, it appears that the hegemony of global rankings may expand beyond elite universities via national versions of these rankings.

The first two volumes of How College Affects Students constitute the most-cited publications in higher education research. Since these volumes were published, the literature on college impact has expanded greatly, which is at least partially the result of the nearly 500 journals focusing on the scholarship of teaching and learning internationally. In addition to the increase in the quantity of college impact research, methodological advancements and the changing notion of the higher education enterprise have further shaped the rigor and tenor of the literature. We draw on our experience and lessons learned from conducting the most recent comprehensive synthesis of college impact literature to discuss 10 challenges and corresponding recommendations to advance future research of the effects of college on students.

Common models of the scientific method articulate the processes by which we hypothesize about the correlation between variables and then test those predictions to make incremental conclusions about the world around us. Implied in this process is the replication and extension of that knowledge to various contexts. As with other social sciences, published analyses have demonstrated that media and communication scholarship suffers from a lack of replication studies, often due to presumptions about the lack of reward or incentive for conducting this work—such as perceived difficulties securing support for and/or publishing these studies. This commentary will reflect on and reinforce arguments for the intentional and important role of replication studies in media and communication scholarship. The essay reflects on replication as a key to post-positivist approaches, and then highlights recent developments that center replication work as key to scientific progression.

Over the past years, scholars have explored eudaimonic video game experiences—profound entertainment responses that include meaningfulness, reflection, and others. In a comparatively short time, a plethora of explanations for the formation of such eudaimonic gaming experiences has been developed across multiple disciplines, making it difficult to keep track of the state of theory development. Hence, we present a theoretical overview of these explanations. We first provide a working definition of eudaimonic gaming experiences (i.e., experiences that reflect human virtues and encourage players to develop their potential as human beings fully) and outline four layers of video games—agency, narrative, sociality, and aesthetics—that form the basis for theorizing. Subsequently, we provide an overview of the theoretical approaches, categorizing them based on which of the four game layers their explanation mainly rests upon. Finally, we suggest the contingency of the different theoretical approaches for explaining eudaimonic experiences by describing how their usefulness varies as a function of interactivity. As different types of games offer players various levels of interactivity, our overview suggests which theories and which game layers should be considered when examining eudaimonic experiences for specific game types.

Digital games have evolved into a medium that moves beyond basic toys for distraction and pleasure towards platforms capable of and effective at instigating more serious, emotional, and intrapersonal experiences. Along with this evolution, games research has also started to consider more deeply affective and cognitive reactions that resemble the broad notion of eudaimonia, with work already being done in communication studies and media psychology as well as in human–computer interaction. These studies offer a large variety of concepts to describe such eudaimonic reactions—including eudaimonia, meaningfulness, appreciation, and self-transcendence—which are frequently used as synonyms as they represent aspects not captured by the traditional hedonic focus on enjoyment. However, these concepts are potentially confusing to work with as they might represent phenomenological distinct experiences. In this scoping review, we survey 82 publications to identify different concepts used in digital gaming research to represent eudaimonia and map out how these concepts relate to each other. The results of this scoping review revealed four broad conceptual patterns: (1) appreciation as an overarching (yet imprecise) eudaimonic outcome of playing digital games; (2) covariation among meaningful, emotionally moving/challenging, and self-reflective experiences; (3) the unique potential of digital games to afford eudaimonic social connectedness; and (4) other eudaimonia-related concepts (e.g., nostalgia, well-being, elevation). This review provides a conceptual map of the current research landscape on eudaimonic game entertainment experiences and outlines recommendations for future scholarship, including how a focus on digital games contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of eudaimonic media experiences broadly.

From the middle-20th century to today, video games have grown from an idiosyncratic interest of computer programmers and engineers to a globally dominant form of media entertainment. Advances in technology and creativity have combined to present players with interactive experience that vary in their cognitive, emotional, physical, and social complexity. That video games constitute co-authored experiences—dialogues between the player and the system—is at least one explanation for their appeal, but this co-authorship brings with it an enhanced set of requirements for the player’s attention. For this thematic issue, researchers were invited to debate and examine the cognitive, emotional, physical, and social demands of video games; their work (as well as the impetus for this work) is summarized below.

In playing videogames, players often create avatars as extensions of agency into those spaces, where the player-avatar relationship (PAR) both shapes gameplay and is the product of gameplay experiences. Avatars are generally understood as singular bodies; however, we argue they are functional and phenomenological assemblages—networks of social and technological components that are internalized by players as networks of knowledge about the avatar. Different PARs are based on different internalizations (i.e., mental models) for what an avatar is and why it matters. Toward illuminating nuances in PARs, we examine the content and structure of players’ internalizations of avatars as evidenced by descriptions of those digital bodies. Secondary analysis of N = 1,201 avatar descriptions parceled them by PAR type (avatars as asocial Objects, psychologically merged extensions of Me, hybrid me/other Symbiotes, and authentically social Other). Aggregated descriptions for each PAR type were subjected to semantic network analysis to identify patterns in salient avatar components, and then qualitatively compared across the four PARs. Results indicate component clusters that are universal to PARs (demographics and body features), common to three of four PARs (time, appearance, clothing, and player agency), and idiosyncratic to specific PARs (significance, character narratives, game dynamics, liminality, and gratifications). Findings signal the importance of theoretically engaging avatars as assemblages both (a) influenced by player-avatar sociality and (b) that contribute (in part and whole) to antecedents, processes, and effects of gameplay.