Productive failure has shown positive effects on conceptual and transfer measures, but no clear effects on procedural measures. It is therefore an open question whether, and to what extent, productive failure methods may be used to enhance the learning of procedural skills. A typical productive failure study focuses on a single, complex concept;…

This paper tried to investigate the differences between two groups of students who have been admitted to the English departments based on two different methods of admission. The first group (A) was admitted directly to the department based on their high school GPA, while the other group (B) was admitted based on the level of their replacement test…

A total of 136 eighth-grade math students from 2 Singapore schools learned from either productive failure (PF) or vicarious failure (VF). PF students "generated" solutions to a complex problem targeting the concept of variance that they had not learned yet before receiving instruction on the targeted concept. VF students…

School systems across the country continuously seek to find ways to increase academic achievement at all grades. Possessing the ability to read is one of the keys to academic success; not being able to presents many challenges. Union County Public Schools and the state of North Carolina expect students leaving their kindergarten year to be able to…

A sample of dropouts is surveyed to determine their reasons for dropping out of school and to assess the factors currently used by the Dade County (Florida) school system to identify at-risk students. Data from telephone surveys of a randomly-selected sample of 2,779 persons who dropped out of grades 7 through 12 during 1986-87, 1987-88, and…

Factors that influenced the withdrawal of academically ineligible black students from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill were investigated. It is suggested that students who involuntarily withdraw are rarely consulted as to their reasons for leaving and that academic ineligibility may mask many of the same reasons for withdrawing as…

The third in a series of four monographs, this study focuses on Black engineering students at Purdue University who persisted, withdrew, or transferred. A survey of the students was conducted to determine factors that influence retention and attrition of Black American students in engineering. A comparison of the pre-college and college…

Attrition among urban engineering students at Stevens Institute of Technology was studied. At the time of the student's college entry, various ability, achievement, personality, interest, and biographical factors were analyzed in an effort to predict student persistence, withdrawal, or academic failure. For the 381 male students who entered the…