High attrition rates in doctoral programs have long plagued the field of higher education. Over the past half century, approximately half of all students who enroll in doctoral program at North American institutions fail to earn their degree (Lovitts, 2001; OECD, 2020; Schneider & Yin, 2011; Sverdlik et al., 2018). The purpose of this study…

Community colleges provide broad access to a college degree due to their less expensive tuition, greater course time offerings, and more open admission policies compared to four-year universities as reported (Juszkiewicz, 2015). These institutions have great potential to diversify who chooses STEM, such as engineering. Such diverse representation…

This qualitative, improvement science, autoethnographic case study aims to examine a unique perspective on rural research through the lens of place-conscious leadership. With an identified problem of inequity in advanced-level course offerings, which resulted in lost student opportunities and student attrition to neighboring schools, the…

Currently, the dropout rate is crucial in the field of Computer Science (CS) higher education. In CS education it is usually the mathematically oriented subjects that are blamed for the high dropout rates. Implementing a theoretical framework into practice, we have been able to prevent 28% of our students from dropping out in the last 2 years due…

Considerable research on effective instruction in the virtual classroom exists. Yet very little is known about the extent to which instructor presence (IP) based on the Community of Inquiry model (CoI), are directly related to retention and student success. CoI includes three components of IP: teaching (TP), cognitive (CP), and social (SP). These…

College student attrition rates remain a major concern and many students leave due to unsatisfactory academic performance. Colleges have responded by offering first-year seminars focused on study skills. There is limited research on the effectiveness of these programmes. More research is needed to assess actual student behaviours after completing…

We examined three large freshman cohorts from Texas State University, a Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI), to identify risk factors that might affect academic retention. Risk factors supported by empirical studies such as first-generation, ethnicity, gender, financial aid need, high school performance, and living off campus were examined. We also…

This study examined long-term persistence differences between three samples of first-year online graduate students to understand the impact an early intervention had on students who failed the first assignment in their first course. A Fisher's exact test showed no statistically significant difference in the likelihood of remaining enrolled at the…

The book analyses and evaluates several key community college reform programs that emerged after the Recession of 2008 and as a result of major initiatives in California, New York, Tennessee, Florida, Connecticut and Wisconsin. Because of the economic downturn in the early 21st Century, an already eroding financial base for public higher education…

The attrition of Black males in higher education has garnered much attention within recent years. Subsequently, programming specific to this issue has been developed to intervene; however, there is very little research that has captured the impact of such initiatives. The current study employed a mixed methods approach to evaluate the effect a…

This study addresses the retention problems of at-risk students in the Foundation Year Program at the Bahrain Teachers' College. Data were collected from the instructors and the students using questionnaires and focus group interviews. Findings show that both instructors and students think the college could play a more active role to increase the…

The transition from school to university can prove problematic for a number of academic and social reasons and first-year attrition rates are high. Research suggests that first-year students need help adjusting to a new phase of learning in a larger community of practice and that a student's decision to leave represents a negative combination of…

The highest attrition rates occur among first-year students. Universities have designed different curricular programmes, such as the development of generic skills, to address this challenge. In the medical school at the University of the Free State in South Africa, these skills were incorporated in the MBChB curriculum as an eight credit-bearing…

This report evaluates the current state of research on New York City charter schools. Overall, their effect on student performance is unambiguously positive.The research however, is more dated and limited in scope than proponents and critics of charters appreciate. While the research on charter schools across the U.S. is growing, this paper…

Massive Open Online Courses appear to have high attrition rates, involve students in peer-assessment with patriotic bias and promote education for already educated people. This paper suggests a formative assessment model which takes into consideration these issues. Specifically, this paper focuses on the assessment of open-format questions in…