"Higher Education Research & Development" ("HERD") was established to address a perceived gap in higher education publishing: research of interest to practitioners that was engagingly written. After 30 years of contributing to the field, "HERD" has constructed a unique position for itself among higher education…

Pattern generalisation has become an important feature of mathematics classrooms around the globe. Sometimes these activities focus purely on given numerical terms, but the use of pictorial or figural patterns is now becoming part of the standard repertoire for such generalisation exercises. From a pedagogic point of view, the investigation of…

The Verhulst model can be used to forecast the sequence, which is characterized as non-monotone and fluctuant sequence or saturated S-form sequence. According to the situation of national enrollment scale of college, this paper forecasts the quantity of students taking entrance examination to college with a Verhulst model with remedy based on data…

This article discusses how Purdue University is changing the academic behavior of struggling students. At Purdue, they've developed Signals as a means of helping students better understand where they stand gradewise early enough so that they can seek help and raise their grade or drop the course without the penalty of a failing grade. They knew…

Policy discussions about funding in higher education focus primarily on revenues needed to balance budgets from year to year, rather than on how funds need to be invested to meet strategic priorities. The data in "Trends" show that the incremental approach to fundraising and spending has resulted in a slow disinvestment in core…

This article describes a model that can be used to analyze student enrollment data and can give insights for improving retention of part-time students and refining institutional budgeting and planning efforts. Adult higher-education programs are often challenged in that part-time students take courses less reliably than full-time students. For…

Basic brain function is not a mystery. Given that neuroscientists understand the brain's basic functioning processes, one wonders what their research suggests to teachers of developmental algebra. What if we knew how to teach so as to improve understanding of the algebra taught to developmental algebra students? What if we knew how the brain…

University student internships can be an important pre-professional experience for the student and be an immense benefit to an employer. Because of the findings of a 6-Sigma project to reduce engineering errors, a design configurator was to be rebuilt to include updated design information and expanded product coverage. Lacking available full time…

Annual giving is the number one indicator that someone will make a major or planned gift. Annual funds are the meat and potatoes of fundraising. But if the annual fund has recently taken a backseat to major and megagifts, the recession made a bad situation even worse. Today, most annual fund performance indicators have plummeted. Virtually all…

Geographic analysis has been adopted by businesses, especially the retail sector, since the early 1990s (Thrall, 2002). Institutional research can receive the same benefits businesses have by adopting geographic analysis and technology. The commonalities between businesses and higher education institutions include the existence of trade areas, the…

Managing chronic excuse-making behaviors of faculty can be difficult and challenging for college administrators. In this article, Schlenker's responsibility triangle is applied in the higher education forum to better understand the underpinnings of responsibility and accountability in faculty jobs. Using this framework, attention is given to…

Human Biology courses are typically offered for non-biology majors who, like students in high school biology courses, have varying degrees of motivation and background. The primary focus is on explaining the biology behind human health and disease, but human ecology, human evolution, and human genetics may also be covered. Hence, Human Biology…

Examines such questions as: (1) Can creativity be fostered by education, and if so, how? (2) What part does language, man's most effective tool, play in this process? and (3) Could the artificial intelligence of computers be enlisted in the quest for greater creativity? (Author/JN)

Two presentations at the 1981 International Conference on Chemical Education are summarized: (1) current and future rationales for chemistry instruction and use of Gowin's V for more effective chemistry teaching and (2) creative adaptability toward challenges of chemistry content, society, and the individual, focusing on learning chemistry by…