The internet has had a vast and pervasive effect on many industries. It has resulted in the creation of new industries and has overhauled the dynamics that governed existing industries. One of the most traditional industries that is now struggling to cope with the changes brought on by the internet is the industry of higher education. Students can…

Colleges have increasingly turned to predictive analytics to target at-risk students for additional support. Most of the predictive analytic applications in higher education are proprietary, with private companies offering little transparency about their underlying models. We address this lack of transparency by systematically comparing two…

Predictive Learning Analytics (PLA) aim to improve learning by identifying students at risk of failing their studies. Yet, little is known about how best to integrate and scaffold PLA initiatives into higher education institutions. Towards this end, it becomes essential to capture and analyze the perceptions of relevant educational stakeholders…

The goal of this paper is to promote computational thinking among mathematics, engineering, science and technology students, through hands-on computer experiments. These activities have the potential to empower students to learn, create and invent with technology, and they engage computational thinking through simulations, visualizations and data…

Identifying collaboration between learners in a course is an important challenge in education for two reasons: First, depending on the courses rules, collaboration can be considered a form of cheating. Second, it helps one to more accurately evaluate each learners competence. While such collaboration identification is already challenging in…

Lim and Leek (2012) presented a formalization of information along object contours, which they argued was an alternative to the approach taken in our article (Feldman & Singh, 2005). Here, we summarize the 2 approaches, showing that--notwithstanding Lim and Leek's (2012) critical rhetoric--their approach is substantially identical to ours,…

This article describes a model that can be used to analyze student enrollment data and can give insights for improving retention of part-time students and refining institutional budgeting and planning efforts. Adult higher-education programs are often challenged in that part-time students take courses less reliably than full-time students. For…

In the context of a theoretical model of expected profit maximization, this paper shows how historic institutional data can be used to assist enrollment managers in determining the level of financial aid for students with varying demographic and quality characteristics. Optimal tuition pricing in conjunction with empirical estimation of…

In the modern world, higher education is transitioning from enrollment mode to recruitment mode. This shift paved the way for institutional research and policy making from historical data perspective. More and more universities in the U.S. are implementing and using enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, which collect vast amounts of data.…

In this paper, through the theoretical lens of life-course research and reproduction theory, we employ 15 years of longitudinal data from the British Columbia, Canada "Paths on Life's Way" project to examine the extent to which educational and career pathways of this cohort of 1988 high school graduates are gendered, individualized,…

Examined are methodologies for modeling students' choices among higher education institutions. A statistical technique called "conditional logit analysis" is applicable to the problem studied. These applications are reviewed and certain weaknesses inherent in the approach are pointed out. Alternative approaches are offered, based on the…

The vocabulary of sampling is examined in order to provide a clear understanding of basic sampling concepts. The basic vocabulary of sampling (population, probability sampling, precision and bias, stratification), the fundamental grammar of sampling (random sample), sample size and response rate, and cluster, multiphase, snowball, and panel…

Describes demonstrations of the risky shift phenomenon in eight social psychology classes of undergraduate and adult education students. Results showed that the phenomenon can be successfully and reliably demonstrated in a classroom. (CK)

Provides details of a course that introduces chemical engineering students to a variety of spreadsheet applications. The course is taken concurrently with stoichiometry and introduces statistical analysis, probability, reliability, and quality control. (DDR)

Presentation of quantitative research on the family often suffers from a tendency to interpret findings on a statistical rather than substantive basis. Advocates the use of data analysis that lends itself to an intuitive understanding of the nature of the findings, the strength of the association, and the import of the result. (JPS)