Universities have grappled with declining enrollment over the past decade and have explored various strategies to boost enrollment and enhance student success. To compete with other universities nationally and align their academic calendar with traditional semesters, the university in this study transitioned from four 11-week to five 8-week…

The purpose of this mixed-methods simple explanatory sequential research design study was to examine and explore the relationship between semester-length and online student success at a community college in southeast Texas. Five research questions were addressed. The first two quantitative questions asked (1) how does semester-length relate to…

This quantitative study investigated the ability of the noncognitive characteristic of grit to predict community college student success and persistence. Grit levels were measured using the eight-item Grit-S scale that was administered to students in classes of a large suburban community college. Individual-level institutional data also were…

This study reviews research and data to determine whether student achievement is affected by the high school scheduling model, and whether changes in scheduling models result in statistically significant changes in student achievement, as measured by the ACT Composite, ACT English Language Arts, and ACT Math scores. The high school scheduling…

Students of public speaking are often asked if a basic public speaking course helped them deal with their fear of public speaking. Comparisons of anxiety levels between students enrolled in traditional 15-week semester courses and those enrolled in intensive courses has received little attention. The purpose of this exploratory, quasi-experimental…

Curricula at most colleges and universities in the United States are scheduled according to quarters or semesters. While each schedule has several potential advantages over the other, it is unclear what effect each has on student performance. This study compares biology student performance during the two and a half years before and after the 1999…

In response to the Bologna Declaration and contemporary trends in Animal Physiology education, the Animal Physiology course at the Faculty of Sciences, University of Novi Sad, Serbia, has evolved over a 12-year period (2001-2012): from a classical two-semester course toward a one-semester course utilizing computer simulations of animal…

The authors describe a collaborative group-testing strategy implemented and studied in undergraduate science classes. This project investigated how the assessment strategy relates to student performance and perceptions about collaboration and focused on two sections of an undergraduate biotechnology course taught in separate semesters.

In a recent study regarding online lecture videos, Evans (2014) shows that lecture videos are not superior to still slides. Using two Introduction to American Government courses, taught in a 4-week summer session, she shows that students in a non-video course had higher satisfaction with the course and instructor and performed better on exams than…

A 2-semester introductory course sequence in any discipline may be justified on the basis that there is too much material to cover in 1 semester and that more in-depth consideration of material will provide students with a better foundation from which to approach subsequent courses. This study took advantage of a natural situation to compare…