The federal government and a number of nonprofit, non-governmental agencies have invested heavily in programs designed to provide research opportunities, financial support, and mentorship to undergraduates in science-related fields. These efforts are aimed at supporting students' matriculation in science majors and into science-related careers.…

In many cases, students are unaware of some parts of their study plans or do not have enough information about utilizing available college resources that may help them through their study years. The purpose of this study was to propose and evaluate a method to improve engineering students' understanding of their study plans and available resources…

Peer mentoring is a widely employed strategy in higher education to foster student development and integration. However, the effectiveness of peer mentoring in higher education lacks well-established statements. A systematic review was conducted to assess the efficacy of peer mentoring during the initial phase of academic studies. This review…

The study below outlines the impact of an Early Alert Program at a Southeastern HBCU, examining this system's impact both between two cohort years, 2022 and 2023 respectively, and within the 2023 cohort. Further factors analyzed include the impact of gender, living on or off-campus, and the student's participation in tutorial services on campus.…

This quantitative study investigated factors influencing first-year student retention at a midsized regional comprehensive university. Using archival data from the 2021-2022 and 2022-2023 academic years, the research examined the retention rates of Standard Admit students and conditionally admitted Success First students. The study explored…

Objective: This study explored how college freshmen, particularly those affected by health inequities, are affected by COVID-19 and whether they would use a university-created online wellness intervention for help. Participants: Nine-hundred and eighty-nine freshmen at a large southeastern university. Method: Students responded to an online survey…

Dropout from engineering studies has been linked to 'fixed mindset' beliefs of intelligence as fixed-at-birth that make students more likely to disengage when facing new challenges. In contrast, 'growth mindset' beliefs that intelligence can be improved with effort make students more likely to persist when confronting difficulties. This systematic…

Increasing student success and retention rates are top goals for many higher education institutions. Supplemental Instruction (SI) is a widely used academic support program designed to increase students' academic performance and provide students the learning skills they need to persist to graduation. Unfortunately, a lack of time, personnel, and…

Placement policies are intended to match students with appropriate courses in order to improve student success, but how do you evaluate these policies? In this article, we evaluate four placement policies at Towson University by considering three categories of outcomes: long-term outcomes such as graduation and retention rates, short-term or…

While the majority of STEM persistence has focused on outcomes for first-year students there has been little investigation into the outcomes for peer mentors and no investigation into whether peer mentors perceive the experience differently based on gender, ethnicity or other relevant variables. The purpose of this study was to examine an archival…

The "Personal Background Preparation Survey" (PBPS) identifies students at risk for academic nonadvancement. Uniquely, the PBPS produces individualized reports making evidence-based risk-specific recommendations prescribing interventions targeting students' empirically identified risk indicators. At a large southwestern health sciences…

The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of one of the latest Texas legislative efforts to increase the college readiness of Texas high school graduates. The study assessed whether students falling under this mandated measure of college readiness are as successful in their college level math and English courses as students who…

Implementation of active-learning practices into science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) courses has been shown to increase student learning and performance, improve retention of material, and reduce achievement gaps among different student populations when compared to lecture-based approaches. To this end, we transformed two…

This study examined the impact of a first-year seminar (FYS) on educational outcomes among students attending an emerging Hispanic-Serving Institution (eHSI) in the southeastern United States. Four undergraduate cohorts of first-year students between 2012 and 2016 were the focus of this study. After accounting for a variety of demographic…

Robust evidence shows that Peer-Led Team Learning (PLTL) improves the academic success of first-year college students in introductory Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) courses. Less clear is the extent to which this positive PLTL effect varies across different subgroups of the population. The current study aims to deepen our…