A meta-analysis was conducted of 137 studies investigating the effects of father absence due to employment, military service, death, divorce, separation, or desertion on children's cognitive performance as assessed by scores on standardized intelligence, scholastic aptitude, and academic achievement tests and school grades. Aggregation of the…

A socioeconomic status (SES) variable was developed and tested as a way to help identify high risk college students at the Community College of Philadelphia. Each city zip code was placed into either the lower, middle, or upper category, and students were assigned a SES measure based on their resident zip code. Using city-wide census data, the…

Determinants of postsecondary education were examined for high school graduates in 1980 to determine whether minority students achieved good rates of enrollment and attainment; and to assess the relative importance of demographic characteristics, achievement in high school, and students' expectations. Data obtained from the High School and Beyond…

Data obtained from interviews with 1,039 non-institutionalized Hispanic elderly (55 and older) who identified themselves as having one or more psychological difficulties were analyzed to determine what factors best predicted subjective well-being. The study was a secondary analysis of data collected in 1979-80 using a national sample stratified by…

Current financial assistance files at three public colleges/universities were examined to determine whether there is discrimination of women in the award of financial aid. Attention was directed to several specific assistance programs: Basic Educational Opportunity Grant Awards, National Direct Student loans, Guaranteed Student Loans, Supplemental…

Data from graduate student applications at a large Western university were used to determine which factors were the best predictors of success in graduate school, as defined by cumulative graduate grade point average. Two statistical models were employed and compared: artificial neural networking and simultaneous multiple regression. Both models…

Purpose: To evaluate the effectiveness of a screening instrument (the Swedish Communication Screening at 18 months of age; SCS18), derived from the Swedish MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory, in identification of 18-month-old children who will be severely language disabled by 3 years of age, the authors (a) analyzed which SCS18's…

This study examined the ability of future certainty--an individual's perception of future stability, operationalized as the likelihood of certain life outcomes--to explain variance in delinquency and school adjustment, while controlling for economic, neighborhood, and family factors, among a cross-sectional sample of 1422 male and 1562 female…

The impact of an outreach program modeled after the Berkeley Bay Area Writing Project was studied. Both projects emphasize the role of expert teachers as teacher trainers for the purpose of improving student writing. The University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) program targets teachers of traditionally underserved students. Data sources…

Student socioeconomic status (SES) and the perceptions of students' and teachers' expectations and attributions of responsibility for learning and their relationships to achievement were studied using linear structural equation modeling. Two models were developed and tested. One model included student expectations and attributions of…

This report describes a study on how perceptions of home climates, school climates, and interaction between the two factors might affect academic achievement and school related behavior among students of different racial/ethnic groups, sex, and socioeconomic background. The report summarizes procedures and results of the ethnographic phase, in…

The correlation between specific personality and biographical variables and the grade point average (GPA) of 211 first quarter community college and technical institute students was investigated using the Adult Nowicki Strickland Internal-External scale to determine locus of control, the Post High School Self-Concept of Academic Ability scale, and…

The investigators hypothesized that home environment variables--as measured by the Home Environment Review, administered upon entrance to kindergarten--account for the variance in children's reading achievement at the end of kindergarten, first, and second grade. One hundred fifty-three children representing a longitudinal, traced sample from two…

The nation's youth are increasingly affected by violence, both as its perpetrators and as its victims. Many violence prevention programs aim to reverse this trend, but few have been rigorously evaluated, and even fewer have been shown to work. To devise better programs, researchers need more information. To that end, RAND researchers identified…

The intent of this study was to determine the influence of selected independent variables on the graduating grade point average (GPA) of community college students in various programs of study. A sample of 483 students from one community college represented seven programs of study: Business Administration-General, Business Administration-Transfer,…