Developmental Education reform has been a vital topic in the field of higher education for decades. There have been several initiatives to further engage under-prepared college students and move them through gateway courses like freshman-level English and Math. One of the more emergent instructional models is referred to as co-requisite…

This study examined how students perceive the impact of a mandatory first-year seminar course on their success and persistence at a 2-year institution. Specifically, the study focused on the influence of the course curriculum and objectives to promote success and perseverance and how the campus community supports student success and persistence.…

Many incoming college freshmen who do not meet minimum standardized exam cut-score requirements are often determined to be not ready for college level coursework and registered for pre-requisite, multi-semester, remedial course sequences. The goal of pre-requisite courses is to prepare students for college-level courses prior to enrollment in…

Existing research into the usage of intelligent tutoring systems (ITSs) has been predominantly quantitative. Studies and metanalyses suggest that ITSs are second only to human tutors with respect to improving student learning outcomes; and that there are no significant differences between learning with an ITS versus a human tutor. This…

Educators and policymakers have continued to search for the ideal medium for gauging learning and teacher accountability. After nearly 50 years since the inception of assessments to prove minimum competency, many attempts have been made to reform the process and the assessment tool. With the current focus in education being on career and college…

One issue that continues to impact higher education is students entering college without the skills and dispositions necessary for success at the postsecondary level. While instructors and educational leaders and often pay significant attention to addressing students' lack of the prerequisite content knowledge in mathematics, reading, and writing,…

The purpose of this quantitative causal-comparative study was to examine if, or to what extent, there is variability in a student's probability of graduating based on an intervention of making a first-year seminar (FYS) course mandatory in 2006 compared to before 2006 when FYS courses were optional when controlling for race/ethnicity, gender, and…

The use of community service to promote learning and civic responsibility in higher education has blossomed since the 1980s. The problem addressed in this study was that although the X University initiated the required community service program in 2004, it had not assessed the effectiveness of the program from students' perspectives. Using Kolb…

As part of its ongoing effort to fulfill the expectations of Massachusetts' Vision Project Agenda for its public colleges and universities, Northeast Community College collaborated with the non-profit organization, Complete College America, to develop the Academic Pathways. The Academic Pathways [or APs] are a pre-determined block of first…

The current study was designed to investigate the student level economic, social, and academic consequences of remedial courses in one private university during the Fall 2006 through Fall 2016 academic semesters. The researcher specifically considering the potential effects of required remedial coursework on first year college students from the…

Many students who begin their higher education journey at community colleges are academically underprepared and lack the skills necessary to begin college-level courses. As a result, underprepared students are required to begin a remedial course sequence designated as "learning support". The purpose of this qualitative narrative inquiry…

Many undergraduate architecture programs have experienced high attrition levels, dating back to the 1940s (McClure, 1948). Despite this longstanding nature, many architecture faculty consider it an indicator of the quality of the program, not a problem to fix (Wiencke, 1994). However, the recession in 2008 had far-reaching effects, greatly…

The Foundations of Inquiry (FOI) course at Illinois State University was a required freshmen course designed to prepare incoming students for the requirements of their various academic programs. One of the course's goals was for students to receive instruction in information literacy (IL) skills and become accustomed to locating and retrieving…

This qualitative, grounded theory study focused on the perspectives of high school seniors, college freshmen, and working young adults in Orange County, California, to create a useful and practical theory about high school students' civic participation as it relates to students' enrollment in postsecondary education. Data collection consisted of…

The purpose of this study was to test the efficacy of learning communities for underprepared first-year students. The topic was examined by synthesizing data collected on a cohort of first-year college students participating in a "developmental" (special admittance) program. A quasi-experimental design evaluated the effectiveness of…