This study investigated whether social identity (i.e., ethnic, science, or a combination of ethnic and science identities) and self-efficacy (i.e., general academic and science) predict academic persistence in STEM (i.e., graduating with a baccalaureate degree in a STEM or STEM-related discipline). The study drew on social cognitive theory (SCT,…

The purpose of this study and question was to find out if age, gender, or student residency predicted the success in college credit-bearing courses when using the corequisite model. Student residency was defined, for the current study, as where the student lives, such as does the student reside on-campus or off-campus. The research questions for…

Internships are widely perceived as a "high-impact practice" that opens the doors of opportunity for college students, yet little is known about obstacles to participation. Instead, educators and employers too often view participation as unproblematic, with many postsecondary institutions beginning to mandate internships for graduation…

In order to improve the accuracy of students' placement into California Community College English as Second Language (ESL) courses and move them more efficiently toward completion, the statewide Common Assessment Initiative (CAI) is developing placement processes for student assessment in credit ESL that contain a multiple measures component. As…

Hispanic college students are more at risk of poor academic performance and dropping out than any other racial group. The Hispanic college population continues to grow, yet rates of retention and achievement for this group continue to decline. Previous research on Hispanic college students has examined factors that contribute to underachievement…

The authors of this chapter present the Socio-Ecological Outcomes Model as a means of predicting student success for community college men of color.

This report for Success Boston, The Boston Foundation and the Boston Opportunity Agenda explores the many reasons why students at two institutions, Bunker Hill Community College and UMass-Boston, "stopped out" of their learning without a degree, and the reasons they did (or did not) return. The report also discusses ways in which other…

The current study explored the differential influences that behavioral learning strategies (i.e., cognitive-metacognitive, resource management), motivational profiles, and academic anxiety appraisals have on college-level learners in two unique learning contexts. Using multivariate analysis of variance and discriminant analysis, the study first…

Rural community college students face unique difficulties in higher education for many reasons, including the resources they typically have access to, their collective histories, and in many cases, the preparation they received in high school. These challenges might be low-performing secondary schools, a lack of tradition and precedence in…

Mathematics is the most common subject area of remedial need and the majority of remedial math students never pass a college-level credit-bearing math class. The majorities of studies that investigate this phenomenon are conducted at community colleges and use some type of regression model; however, none have used a continuation ratio model. The…

Sexual orientation has been socially prominent in the national media lately, but little is known about how college creates opportunity for thinking about sexual orientation among individual students. Using data from the Diverse Learning Environments survey, administered by the Higher Education Research Institute, we compared samples of…

Career identity development is salient in adolescence and young adulthood, but little research has assessed career identity in populations other than four-year college students. Context should be considered when examining career identity, and to address this gap in the literature, the current study examined the extent to which parental support for…

Assessing a student's ability to be successful in courses and programs is an important and necessary aspect of student success. Two major practices exist to predict a student's likelihood of succeeding in a course or program: (1) Successful completion of prerequisite or advisory courses (as documented on transcripts) and (2) the assessment for…

Designing effective student retention programs is of critical importance from both a completion and a monetary standpoint. However, oftentimes colleges attempt to use nationally developed models rather than institutional-specific data to identify potential factors involved in student attrition. At a Midwestern community college, research…

The U.S. Department of Education estimates that 20 percent of community college students default on their student loan obligations (compared with 14.7 percent of all student loan borrowers), and that number is rising. What can community college financial officers do to keep their default numbers low? In this article, Heather Boerner describes the…