It is commonly accepted that primary and secondary education help maintain social and economic stability, but there is also consensus that postsecondary education contributes to social and economic mobility. While there have been improved enrollment numbers among minoritized and low socioeconomic populations over time, there is still…

I study student characteristics and academic performance at the University of California, where consideration of an applicant's ethnicity has been banned since 1996 and SAT scores were used in admitting students to the university until fall 2021. I show the following: (1) SAT scores were more important than high school grades in predicting…

Using administrative data from Georgia, we provide the first study of the full set of college entrance exam-taking strategies, including who takes the ACT and the SAT (or both), when they take the exams, and how many times they take each exam. We have several main findings. First, one-third of exam takers take both the ACT and SAT. Second, we see…

Current measures of student success fall short in capturing the nuanced and multiplicitous ways that underrepresented and misrepresented students (e.g., Latinx, first-generation college students) who are navigating the intersection of multiple contexts important to their identities (e.g., home communities and university), define and understand…

This dissertation investigates whether dual credit students' academic performance in subsequent university courses is comparable to that of non-dual-credit students. The study uses data from a Midwest regional public university over a ten-year period and employs propensity score matching and proportional odds ordinal logistic regression to create…

Strengthening teacher supply is a key policy objective for K-12 public education, but understanding of the early teacher pipeline remains limited. In this descriptive analysis, we leverage the universe of applications to a large public university in Texas from 2009 to 2020 to examine the pipeline into teacher education and employment as a K-12…

Problem Roulette (PR), an online study service at the University of Michigan, offers points-free formative practice to students preparing for examinations in introductory science, technology, engineering, and mathematics courses. Using four years of PR data involving millions of problem attempts by thousands of students, we quantify the benefits…

The Uniformed Services University (USU) created the Enlisted to Medical Degree Preparatory Program (EMDP2) in 2014 with the goal of diversifying their student body. The primary purpose of this study was to determine whether certain independent variables (gender, age, race/ethnicity, underrepresented in medicine (URM) status, years of military…

The landscape of American higher education is becoming more competitive each year. Discussions about equity and increasing access to underrepresented student groups grows each year, particularly regarding the role of standardized testing. Some research has shown the SAT and ACT exams, the two primary college entrance exams used in the United…

Strengthening teacher supply is a key policy objective for K-12 public education, but understanding of the early teacher pipeline remains limited. We leverage the universe of applications to a large public university in Texas from 2009-2020 to examine the pipeline into teacher education and employment as a K-12 public school teacher. A unique…

Management faculty members have had a longstanding interest in the design of the Introduction to Management Course as it presents an opportune point to provide students with the foundational skills for success in their Management Studies. Since many Management majors take these courses during their freshman year in the university, the courses are,…

This dissertation includes three essays that examine the potential of policies, interventions, and curricula in improving transitions to four-year colleges and universities in the U.S. The first essay provides a novel investigation of New York City's adoption of SAT School Day (SSD), which provides universal access to college entrance exams for…

This study examined the mediation and moderation of membership in a demographic group underrepresented in physics classes on course outcomes measured by course grades and Force and Motion Conceptual Evaluation (FMCE) post-test scores. The study used a large dataset (N ¼ 4490) of course grades, SAT and ACT mathematics scores (ACTM), and matched…

Historically, African American and other underserved students encounter academic challenges in pursuit of a college degree--one of which is their performance on standardized tests. This paper analyzes College Grade Point Averages (CGPAs), ACT Composite (ACTC), and SAT Total (SATT) scores of students who participated in the Health Sciences and…

College science courses aim to teach students both disciplinary knowledge and scientific literacy skills. Several instruments have been developed to assess students' scientific literacy skills, but few studies have reported how demographic differences may play a role. The goal of this study was to determine whether demographic factors…