Nicholas David Bowman

Otome games—romantic simulation games centered on relationships between a female player and male non-player characters (NPCs)—have grown into a global phenomenon, yet research on why players find them entertaining remains largely rooted in the Asian cultural context. This study replicates prior work on Chinese players with 131 U.S. otome players, testing whether perceived reciprocity, romantic closeness, hedonic enjoyment, and eudaimonic appreciation are positively associated. H2 and H3 were supported: romantic closeness was positively associated with both hedonic enjoyment (β = .47) and eudaimonic appreciation (β = .71), suggesting that emotional connection with NPCs is a culturally stable correlate of entertainment outcomes. H1, however, was not supported: perceived reciprocity showed no appreciable association with romantic closeness (β = .07, p ∼ .512). We attribute this failure to two factors. First, cultural stigma surrounding otome gaming in the U.S. context may have suppressed the strength of players’ self-reported relational experiences, pulling scores toward neutral. Second, our sample shows that many U.S. players approached the game through the avatar, treating the on-screen protagonist as a distinct character whose romance they observed rather than experienced. These findings suggest that perceived reciprocity is not a universal antecedent of romantic closeness, while romantic closeness itself remains a culturally stable driver of entertainment outcomes.

The Registered Revisions Pathfinder Pilot was designed to pilot both a new journal policy for peer review and a new framework for randomized evidence generation in science policy. The Registered Revisions policy, a precommitment policy comparable to Registered Reports, enables authors to respond to editor comments implying a change to analysis by providing a Revision Plan for approval before conducting those new analyses. If the plan and other revisions and responses are approved, the manuscript is given an in-principle acceptance. The author enacts the plan, and the manuscript is presumed accepted regardless of the results. This policy aims to focus review on methodological quality while lessening uncertainty, questionable research practices, and publication biases that may occur in late stage peer review.To evaluate the Registered Revisions policy among an array of journals, we have designed and piloted a “meta trial.” This combines multi-center individually-randomized trial design with prospective meta-analysis. Each journal runs its own randomized trial supported by a centralized backbone design and infrastructure. The results are combined in a planned and predesigned meta analysis.At the time of this writing, neither the Registered Revisions policy nor the meta trial design have been implemented. This Pathfinder Pilot was designed to develop the materials and iteratively test practical implementations of both to support a scaled implementation.This document describes the project history through the end of the Pathfinder Pilot, including redesigns, mistakes made, and successes along the way.

Given the persistently high and disparate rates of students leaving college without receiving a postsecondary credential, this chapter explores institutional initiatives that seek to promote college students’ success and equity. First, it describes organizational and institutional challenges that colleges and universities often face when seeking to achieve these goals. Next, it synthesizes the voluminous literature on the efficacy of college success interventions, with an emphasis on recent reviews of initiatives that occur via individual courses, student services, co-curricular engagement, multifaceted programs, data analytics, and institutional policies. It summarizes the strengths and weaknesses of the existing literature base, and it concludes by offering concrete recommendations and considerations for institutional practitioners and policymakers.

The increasing internationalization of higher education brings opportunities for international and domestic students to interact with one another in productive and meaningful ways. This study examined residential environments in which international and domestic students may be placed in close physical proximity and spend a great deal of time together. Using an institutional dataset of 1,340 international students and 20,323 domestic students from a large research university in the United States, this study explored the extent to which having at least one international roommate and the percentage of international floormates predicts success outcomes among international and domestic students. The results of multilevel regression analyses showed that domestic students living with international roommates tended to have lower grades, retention rates, and graduation rates than domestic students living with domestic roommates; similar adverse findings were observed for the percentage of international floormates. In contrast, the presence of international roommates and floormates was unrelated to success outcomes among international students.

Citations in academic journals are often considered an important metric for assessing the quality or impact of an article or other published work (Aksnes et al., 2019; Thelwall et al., 2023). Artic...

The high price of college attendance remains a barrier to success for students from low- and moderate-income families. In response, institutions have introduced microgrants—small, off-cycle, need-based grants for undergraduates—to support student success. However, evidence on their effectiveness is limited. Using extensive administrative and survey data, we apply doubly robust quasi-experimental matching methods to estimate the relationships between microgrants and academic outcomes over 4 years. Findings indicate that grant recipients achieved higher grade point averages (GPAs), earned more credits, had better retention rates, and graduated at higher rates than their observably similar peers. These findings have important implications for equity efforts in the current sociopolitical context, as students from historically underserved groups were more likely to receive microgrants despite their universal design.

University rankings have become a critical factor in shaping higher education choices, policy, and public discourse about educational quality. Despite criticisms of their validity, they influence students’ decisions regarding applications and enrolment. Using commensuration and push-and-pull factors, this chapter examines the mechanisms through which university rankings impact students’ educational decisions. Empirical research shows that better performance in rankings predicts more applicants, higher academic quality among applicants, and lower acceptance rates. Graduating from highly-ranked universities also facilitates employment opportunities, motivating students to pursue them. In addition, the link between rankings and enrolment varies by demographics, nationality, degree level, field of study, institutional context, media portrayal and ranking design. The chapter concludes with a call for future research on students’ knowledge and use of rankings, examining cultural and national differences in ranking perceptions, and investigating how ranking developers expand their influence through the creation of national and regional rankings.