As the need for engineers continues to increase, a growing focus has been placed on recruiting students into the field of engineering and retaining the students who select engineering as their field of study. As a result of this concentration on student retention, numerous studies have been conducted to identify, understand, and confirm…

This case study investigated the impact of the Statistical Concepts course redesign on the retention, performance, and satisfaction of non-traditional undergraduate students. The redesign used a systematic approach and has been yielding positive impacts over 5 trimesters. Student attrition rates on average decreased by 12% and the number of…

Student retention and completion rates are challenging issues in higher education. In the academic domain, pressure exists for every institution to come up with strategies that support student success from enrollment through graduation without compromising academic or accreditation standards. This paper presents the findings from a review of…

We sought to test a hypothesis that systemic blind spots in active learning are a barrier both for instructors--who cannot see what every student is actually thinking on each concept in each class--and for students--who often cannot tell precisely whether their thinking is right or wrong, let alone exactly how to fix it. We tested a strategy for…

Research shows, despite an increase in underrepresented students completing their doctoral programs, there remains a significantly low rate of participation and completion amongst underrepresented minorities and females in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields of study. Growing ethnic diversity throughout the United States…

Knowledge is Power Program Delta College Preparatory School (KIPP DCPS), an open-enrollment charter school,1 opened in 2002 in Helena, Arkansas. KIPP DCPS students have consistently outperformed their peers from neighboring districts on year-end student achievement scores, and KIPP's national reputation led Arkansas lawmakers to exempt KIPP from…

This qualitative study compared faculty and student perceptions regarding factors that affect student retention in online courses in an attempt to more effectively address the problem of attrition. A grounded study method was used to interview students taking online courses, analyze their responses related to the critical factors that affect…

Previous studies have examined patterns of withdrawal from initial teacher education (ITE) programs and have found that pre-service teachers are more likely to withdraw if they are male or older than the typical pre-service teacher. This study presents case studies based on semi-structured interviews with older male pre-service teachers who…

Student attrition has been a significant challenge facing higher education for decades and is particularly pronounced within community colleges. Specifically, first-time postsecondary students only experienced a 59.3 percent retention rate between Fall 2013 and Fall 2014; at two-year colleges, less than half (46.9 percent) of students were…

There are tensions within formal education between imparting knowledge and the development of skills for handling that knowledge. In the primary school sector, the latter can also be squeezed out of the curriculum by a focus on basic skills such as literacy and numeracy. What happens when an explicit attempt is made to develop young children's…

We examined the efficacy of an afterschool multicomponent reading intervention for third- through fifth-grade students with reading difficulties. A total of 419 students were identified for participation based on a 90 standard score or below on a screening measure of the Test of Silent Reading Efficiency and Comprehension. Participating students…

Adult literacy programs are characterized by high attrition rates. Rigorous exploration of student persistence in adult reading classes is lacking. This study was an attempt to understand the profiles of adults who completed reading classes compared to a group of adults who made it to the midpoint and a group of adults who did not make it to the…

Online learning has grown dramatically over the past few years and has become an integral part of most of the higher education institutions' overall strategy. While this explosive growth has created exciting opportunities for both institutions and students, high dropout rates in online learning environments continues to be a major concern for all…

Multimedia learning research has established several principles for the effective design of audiovisual instruction. The image principle suggests that showing the instructor's face in multimedia instruction does not promote learning, because the potential benefits from inducing social responses are outweighed by the cost of additional cognitive…

University enabling programs, worldwide, generally target high school students who excel at school, or post-secondary students who have underperformed in their university entry examinations. Murdoch University provides an access program for Year/Grade 12 students who are not on a university pathway during their final year of high school. This…