School climate is increasingly recognized by scholars and policymakers as a crucial factor associated with students' educational experiences. Hence, practitioners endeavor to equitably measure and improve school climate to promote favorable student academic and behavior outcomes. Unfortunately, school climate research is fragmented, and a…

Use of the term Background knowledge, in conjunction with Reading Comprehension, has become convoluted and vague over the past several decades of research. Showing the abundance of uses of the term in multiple domains and disciplines has relegated it to being an automatic inclusion in key notes and conclusions of research on the topic of improving…

This report examines the extent to which student characteristics, achievement, and postsecondary plans can predict the likelihood of college attendance. The report compares students' self-reported plans in Spring 2019 with subsequent college attendance through the 2019-2020 school year. The postsecondary plans used in this report are obtained from…

This study examined a psychosocial mechanism of how general self-efficacy interacts with other key factors and influences degree aspiration for students enrolled in an urban diverse community college. Using general self-efficacy scales, the authors hypothesized the General Self-efficacy model for Community College students (the GSE-CC model). A…

Undergraduate retention, graduation, and postgraduation success are greater when students engage in undergraduate research. This article describes a grassroots, faculty-initiated effort to increase the number of students who received research experiences at a large, urban institution. Peer course coaches, students who had previously taken a course…

Six years ago, Front Range Community College President Andy Dorsey sat down with his team and looked at the college's completion and graduation rates. Like a lot of colleges, they were in for a shock. It is not that they had expected to see 80 percent completion rates. But they certainly were not expecting to see only 43 percent of their students…

Despite the importance of scientific writing in a chemists' professional career, their development as scientific writers is often neglected in undergraduate and graduate curricula. Among the courses that do encourage students to generate written documents like proposals, lab reports, or essays, the scientific community rarely benefits from the…

Inherent challenges affect first-generation students' persistence from as early as the first college year. Using cultural capital as a guide, this study is unique in that it investigates the contribution of first-year policies and programs to the success of first-generation students in 57 bachelor's degree-granting institutions across five states…

There is growing interest in improving and assessing teachers' use of culturally responsive practices (CRP) in the classroom, yet relatively few research-based approaches exist to address these measurement gaps. This article presents findings on the psychometric properties of a newly developed classroom observation measure of CRP, called the CARES…

Electronic laboratory notebooks are gaining in popularity in industry and academia. Various types of electronic laboratory notebooks exist, and a variety of tools can be used for these forms of notebooks. Some tools are commercial products dedicated to being electronic notebooks, while individual organizations can develop ones for their own needs…

The purpose of this study is to see whether a large drawing of a nephron helped medical students in self-directed learning groups learn renal physiology, histology, and pharmacology before discussing clinical cases. The end points were the grades on the renal examination and a student survey. The classes in the fall of 2014 and 2015 used the…

This article reports on a cross-institutional, mixed-methods research study designed to gather data on first year writers' language backgrounds at three North American universities. Researchers administered a language survey to 1,870 first year writing students and led follow-up focus groups with 32 participants. Researchers utilized three methods…

Nontraditional students returning to college have many outside stressors that potentially prohibit academic success including full-time jobs, home life (children, spouses, and bills), and lack of time or understanding of college assignments. An explanatory mixed methods study was conducted for the purpose of determining if and for how long the…

Aim/Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of the flipped classroom model on learner achievement and satisfaction for undergraduate learners Background: The context for this research on the flipped classroom was an introductory technology literacy course at a public, research university. Methodology: This study employed a…

College campus life is changing based on pressures to create safe environments for students to learn. Much of this change has been outlined in an article by Lukianoff and Haidt entitled "The Coddling of the American Mind." The authors of the present article asked 188 students from two universities if microaggressions, trigger warnings,…