Course dropout is a concern in online higher education, mainly in first-year courses when different factors negatively influence the learners' engagement leading to an unsuccessful outcome or even dropping out from the university. The early identification of such potential at-risk learners is the key to intervening and trying to help them before…

Small private online courses (SPOCs) have influenced teaching and learning in China's higher education. Learning management systems (LMSs) are important components in SPOCs. They can collect various data related to student behavior and support pedagogical interventions. This research used feature engineering and nearest neighbor smoothing models…

This investigation sought to determine when colleges should conduct assessments to identify first-year students at risk of dropping out. Thirty-five variables were used to predict the persistence of 2,024 first-year students from four universities in the southeastern United States. The predictors were subdivided into groups according to when they…

Students enter college chemistry courses with different sources of motivation, appropriate or inappropriate assumptions about their probability of success and how to study. This study is theoretically aligned with self-regulated learning research. Clearly, academic performance is closely related to student motivational beliefs and learning…

This is the fifth in a series of articles describing an attrition prediction and intervention project at the University of South Florida (USF) in Tampa. The project was originally presented in the 83(2) issue (Miller 2007). The statistical model for predicting attrition was described in the 83(3) issue (Miller and Herreid 2008). The methods and…

Researchers have suggested that fraternity membership is the most reliable predictor of gambling and gambling problems on campus. The purpose of this study was to determine if problematic gambling could be linked to specific aspects of fraternity membership. Though the null hypothesis (no enabling environment) failed to be rejected, descriptive…

Evaluations of special education interventions are different from research on medical interventions. Educational evaluations would be more useful if they applied an actuarial, or probability approach. Information should be collected over time and using various measures, thus increasing the available data. (GDC)

The Maui Hawaii Educational consortium (the Maui School District and Maui Community College) sought scientifically based evidence for the effectiveness of the "Cognitive Tutor (CT) Algebra I Curriculum" to inform adoption decisions. Decision makers were particularly interested in whether the use of the "CT" program affects…

Universities and technikons have been struggling to meet the demands of growing numbers of students who enter higher education with limited skills. Higher Education literature abroad provides an exhaustive range of theory about the reasons for students leaving (cited in Strauss & Volkwein 2002), as well as proposals for positive intervention.…

The IADIS CELDA 2012 Conference intention was to address the main issues concerned with evolving learning processes and supporting pedagogies and applications in the digital age. There had been advances in both cognitive psychology and computing that have affected the educational arena. The convergence of these two disciplines is increasing at a…