Colleges and universities are grappling with supporting underprepared students in mathematics. While research examines the demographics of students and the effects of changing the number of preparatory courses, few studies examine the impact of pedagogical practices on student outcomes. This study investigated the effect of an alternative…

Studies of stress and coping effects on college performance have yielded inconsistent results, which might be clarified by stricter adherence to stress theories. Here, university students (n = 1212) were surveyed during their first year, said to be the most stressful. They completed measures of stress overload (the pathogenic state identified by…

We present an analysis on the differential effects of incentivizing homework in an introductory mathematics course at the United States Military Academy. We found that including homework as part of a student's overall course average (incentive) led to a significantly higher performance (achievement) on homework assignments. However, doing homework…

This quantitative longitudinal study sought to highlight the difference between the proportion of men and women who planned to pursue a STEM major in the fields of mathematics, natural sciences, engineering, and computer and information sciences as freshmen, as well as to determine the proportion of men and women who changed their major choice by…

The purpose of this study was to examine freshmen international student perceptions of engagement at a private, 4-year University in the northeast and the association of these perceptions with self-reported gains in practical skills and institution-reported GPA. Data of this non-experimental study were collected via NSSE survey. The NSSE data of…

A project-based course for first-year engineering students, called Engineering Exploration, was created an implemented with the goals of increasing retention, providing professional skills, increasing interest about engineering, and to aide in choosing an engineering major. Over 100 students have taken the course since its inception in Fall 2009.…

Information literacy--the ability "to recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information" (American Library Association [ALA], 1989, para. 3)--has been widely and increasingly cited as an essential competency for college success, for the workplace, and for life…

There has been an increase in the number of high school graduates who lack "college-readiness" skills and require more remediation. This study purposed to report the impact of a learning strategies course on first-year students' academic success and persistence as indicated by first semester, second-semester, and third semester grade point…