Although more students study abroad today than in decades prior, participation still lags behind national goals put forth by the Lincoln Commission. Many students plan to study abroad, yet this often does not correspond with actual participation. This gap suggests there are barriers that prevent study abroad intentions from evolving into program…

There is growing evidence that school starting age impacts children's likelihood of receiving special education services, but less is known about variations in this effect. Using a regression discontinuity design, I found that the youngest students in a kindergarten cohort are 40% more likely (p < 0.001) to be placed in special education than…

Nearly 14% of students in the United States receive special education services in public schools (NCES, 2017). Special education programs serve students with a wide range of developmental differences and vary considerably across schools and districts (National Research Council, 1997). Likelihood of identification for special education services…

This study examined the relationship between student anxiety about high-stakes testing and their subsequent test performance. The FRIEDBEN Test Anxiety Scale was administered to 1,134 11th-grade students, and data were subsequently collected on their statewide assessment performance. Test anxiety was a significant predictor of test performance…

The Pittsburgh Promise is a scholarship program that provides $5,000 per year toward college tuition for public high school graduates in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania who earned a 2.5 GPA and a 90% attendance record. This study used a difference-in-difference design to assess whether the introduction of the Promise scholarship program directly…

This study developed a new survey of teachers' knowledge about early reading and examined the effects of teachers' knowledge on students' reading achievement in Grades 1 to 3 in a large sample of Michigan schools. Using statistical models that controlled for teachers' personal and professional characteristics, students' prior reading achievement,…

The purpose of this study is to determine how behavioral symptoms of inattention predict rapid automatized naming (RAN) performance and reading skills in typically developing children. Participants included 104 third- and fourth-grade children from different elementary schools in mid-Michigan. RAN performance was assessed using the four Rapid…

Prediction models using graduation rate as the performance indicator were obtained for community colleges in California, Florida, and Michigan. The results of this study indicated that institutional graduation rate could be predicted effectively from an aggregate of student and institutional characteristics. A performance measure was computed, the…

With the current concern over the growing need for more engineers, there is an immediate need to improve freshman engineering retention. A working model for freshman engineering retention is needed. This paper proposes such a model based on Tinto's Interactionalist Theory. Emphasis in this model is placed on pre-college characteristics as…

A study was designed to investigate the possibility that college students who participate in career decision-making (CDM) programs differ from the general college population in ways unrelated to their CDM status. This exploratory hypothesis was tested by determining, first, whether a regression equation could be constructed using readily available…

This report discusses the outcomes of a study that examined the influence and additive effects of student demographic characteristics on student placement in special education programs in Michigan. Using a combination of outside data and the Michigan Department of Education Student Database (1999), statewide findings indicate that taken…

This paper investigates the reasons why teachers change teaching jobs, focusing on movements of teachers between rather than within districts. The dataset traces the careers of full-time Michigan public school teachers during the 1970s. To build the regression models, a discrete-time maximum likelihood method was used. The study is restricted to…