Introduction: Critical thinking is a highly-valued skill in higher education, even though there are few studies that demonstrate its effectiveness on scientific skills of pedagogy students. The purpose of this study was to analyze the effect of a critical thinking program (PENCRIT-RC) on inquiry and probabilistic reasoning skills in pedagogy…

Students leaving institutions of higher education prior to graduation leads to millions of dollars in lost revenue (Sutter & Paulsen, 2016; Undergraduate Retention and Graduation Rates, 2018). Retention theorists Tinto (1975) and Kuh (2008) recommend practices such as academic interaction, social interaction, faculty engagement with students,…

Background: Developmental education (i.e., remedial education) has come under scrutiny given evidence that it is ineffective for learning or hinders students' progress toward degree completion (Scott-Clayton & Rodriguez, 2014; Xu & Dadgar, 2018). However, there is heterogeneity in the effect of developmental education, with positive…

Objective: Training programs exist that prepare college students, faculty, and staff to identify and support students potentially at risk for suicide. Kognito is an online program that trains users through simulated interactions with virtual humans. This study evaluated Kognito's effectiveness in preparing users to intervene with at-risk students.…

Campus visits are widely used outreach strategies, yet there are few empirical studies examining their impacts. This retrospective cohort study of 27 colleges and universities considers data from 15,847 college students to examine the effect of campus visits on STEM career aspirations. Results reveal that campus visits that included meetings with…

Supplemental Instruction (SI) is a voluntary, non-remedial, peer-facilitated, course-specific intervention that has been widely demonstrated to increase student success, yet concerns persist regarding the biasing effects of disproportionate participation by already higher-performing students. With a focus on maintaining access for all students, a…

Instructional technologists and faculty in post-secondary institutions have increasingly adopted learning analytics interventions such as dashboards that provide real-time feedback to students to support student' ability to regulate their learning. But analyses of the effectiveness of such interventions can be confounded by measures of students'…

This paper uses a standard difference-in-differences approach to examine the effect of the L'Aquila earthquake on the academic performance of the students of the local university. The empirical results indicate that this natural disaster reduced students' probability of graduating on-time and slightly increased students' probability of dropping…

Objective: Quantway is a Carnegie Math Pathways initiative, which redesigns the content, pedagogy, and structure of traditional developmental mathematics courses to simultaneously tackle traditional barriers to student success and support a broad range of developmental students in achieving their mathematics potential. Specifically, Quantway is a…

This study examined participation in accelerated college credit programs dual enrollment, concurrent enrollment, and Advanced Placement courses in Rhode Island high schools to understand their effects on educational attainment in the 2013/14 grade 9 cohort. The state, which has funded and promoted these opportunities for students to earn college…

This Study Snapshot highlights key findings where the Rhode Island Department of Education, the Rhode Island Office of the Postsecondary Commissioner, and state legislators sought evidence of the effects of state-funded programs for students to earn college credit during high school. Using data on the 2013/14 statewide grade 9 cohort, this…

The "The Effects of Accelerated College Credit Programs on Educational Attainment in Rhode Island" study examined participation in accelerated college credit programs dual enrollment, concurrent enrollment, and Advanced Placement courses in Rhode Island high schools to understand their effects on educational attainment in the 2013/14…

Over the previous two decades, state lawmakers have made two fundamental changes to how they finance their public universities. They have shifted more of the costs of higher education to students and their families through higher tuition rates; and created new grant programs that are not solely based on financial need but require prior…

The first-year experience for students enrolled in an online degree program, particularly the orientation and the first course experience, is critical to success and completion. The experience of one online university in improving persistence through enhancing orientation and the first academic course is presented. Factors impacting persistence…

Study abroad can be a life-changing experience, but evidence of its effectiveness is mixed. We examine the experience of studying abroad at colleges in the US and China, which are the largest receiving and sending countries of international students respectively. Using data from two comparable national surveys that follow the same design, we…