Self-referent performance beliefs can influence people's decision making related to long-term goals. Current measures of such beliefs, however, do not explicitly focus on the long-term aspects of goal achievement. We introduce a new concept, Long-Term Prospects (LTP), which is defined as the self-perception that one can maintain the continuous…

Employment status in high school has been shown to have a negative relationship with measures of academic achievement which some researchers have attributed to student characteristics such as demographics and socioeconomic status. The current study investigated differences in the demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of "working…

The prevalence of homeschooling in the United States is increasing. Yet little is known about how commonly used predictors of postsecondary academic performance (SAT, high school grade point average [HSGPA]) perform for homeschooled students. Postsecondary performance at 140 colleges and universities was analyzed comparing a sample of traditional…

The current focus on assessing "college and career readiness" raises an empirical question: How do high school tests compare with college admissions tests in predicting performance in college? We explored this using data from the City University of New York and public colleges in Kentucky. These two systems differ in the choice of…

College admission offices receive many different pieces of information on each applicant to their institution. The job of considering this information becomes further complicated when the information is not consistent across applicants. An example of one such complication is receiving SAT scores for some applicants and receiving ACT scores for…

The use of merit criteria in awarding institutional aid has grown considerably and, some argue, is supplanting need as the central factor in awarding aid. Concurrently, the accountability movement in higher education has placed greater emphasis on retention and graduation as indicators of institutional success and quality. In this context, this…

There is an abundance of research associated with the belief that factors such as educational expenditures, socioeconomic demographics, geographic location, district size and school funding have a relationship to student achievement. This study provides insight into the relationship between these factors and the effect it has on student academic…

Given the major investment in the Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs (GEAR UP) grant, rising postsecondary access, trends in poor persistence and retention rates, and the ongoing accountability measures in higher education, it is critical to examine factors related to postsecondary performance and persistence of GEAR…

Aptitude tests should predict student success at the university level. This study examined the predictive validity of the General Aptitude Test (GAT) in Saudi Arabia. Data for 27420 students enrolled at Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University were analyzed. Of these students, 17565 were male students, and 9855 were female students. Multiple…

Learning assistant (LA) programs have been implemented at a range of institutions, usually as part of a comprehensive curricular transformation accompanied by a pedagogical switch to active learning. While this shift in pedagogy has led to increased student learning gains, the positive effect of LAs has not yet been distinguished from that of…

While research has shown the statistical significance of high school grade point averages (HSGPAs) in predicting future academic outcomes, the systems with which HSGPAs are calculated vary drastically across schools. Some schools employ unweighted grades that carry the same point value regardless of the course in which they are earned; other…

At community colleges, student preparedness for college-level work is a significant initial barrier. Over 70% of community college students are reported to be inadequately prepared for college mathematics. Because students need to pass college-level math in order to enroll in subsequent courses required for their majors or to complete general…

Critical to many science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) career paths is mathematical modeling--specifically, the creation and adaptation of mathematical models to solve problems in complex settings. Conventional standardized measures of mathematics achievement are not structured to directly assess this type of mathematical…

The Advanced Placement Program® (AP®) was created to provide access to rigorous, college-level curricula to motivated and prepared high school students. This study evaluated whether the AP Exam scores from the summative exams associated with 10 courses were valid for the placement of students into higher-level college courses in the subject area…

The purpose of this descriptive causal-comparative study was to examine persistence to graduation of student cohorts with 60+ credit hours earned who are native to the university and transfer students coming into Tennessee Technological University with 60+ credit hours previously earned at a community college. Data were obtained for each student…