In a yearlong project, Britain's Business and Technology Education Council (BTEC) investigated why some students leave their educational programs before achieving their certificates or diplomas. The project drew information on completion rates from the BTEC database. Views of BTEC centers' staff were canvassed through a national survey covering…

The proportion of blacks in graduate school during the 1980s decreased from the proportion in post-college educational programs during the previous decade. To shed light on this phenomenon, a highly motivated group of 146 black scholars who were in graduate school between 1977 and 1985 was studied. All of the subjects were college faculty members…

A study investigated factors affecting participation, engagement, and retention of non-native English-speaking students (NNSs) in community college mainstream classes. The student sample included three classes in developmental English at a small western Massachusetts community college. Data were drawn from taped classroom observations and student…

This publication presents a summary of the research obtained from senior high schools in Minnesota that used the Minnesota Secondary School Follow-Up System to collect data on the class of 1987. Data were collected from 84 high schools, plus a sampling of Minneapolis, with responses received from 10,705 students (76.8% of those surveyed). Of the…

Designed as a channel for communication among City University of New York faculty regarding initiatives to reduce attrition and promote student success, this publication contains articles on various aspects of student development and bilingualism. The volume contains: (1) "The Process Is the Purpose," an introduction by Anthony F. Russo,…

A continuing concern in a number of teaching fields is the shortage of fully qualified teachers. The decisions of fully qualified teachers to continue in their teaching assignments (retention), to transfer to another assignment (transfer), or to leave the profession for some other activity (exit attrition) are the major determinants of the degree…

A study was conducted of 66,581 students who initially enrolled in Illinois public community colleges in fall 1980 in either baccalaureate/transfer or occupational programs and who earned a baccalaureate degree from a public university in Illinois by 1989. The study did not include transfer students who did not earn a baccalaureate degree or…

A design for improving the quality of information available for continuous operational study of student retention at the University of Hartford in Connecticut was examined involving a microcomputer based decision support system for student retention research. The system, an interactive modeling approach to conduct longitudinal and comparative…

Five hundred incoming students attending Mount Saint Vincent University (Nova Scotia) were selected to participate in a study designed to compare the expectations and experiences of traditional students (who entered immediately after high school or transferred from another university or college) and nontraditional students (who entered part-time…

In the Maryland community colleges, a Success Rate Indicator is used to measure student success and is determined from the graduation, transfer, and still-enrolled status of a cohort of first-time full-time students after 4 years. The information is obtained by matching enrollment and graduation files from all public colleges in Maryland. Students…

The purpose of this longitudinal study was to examine associations among background characteristics, commitment levels, institutional involvements, and persistence for male and female university students. Data were collected from college records and surveys completed by 316 university freshmen at the beginning of and 10 weeks into the 1984 fall…

Results of a 1982 survey to assess competencies that were developed for special education teachers in Kansas are presented. The 61 competencies covered the role of special education personnel with regular educators and the involvement of parents in the special education process. The objective of the competency-development project was to reduce the…

A follow-up study of 1983/1984 graduates of Chapter 74 vocational education programs had two primary components. The graduate survey examined employment and education progress of vocational students at a point well after graduation. It measured graduates' labor force and wage status, employment stability and wage growth, and perceptions of…

A study was conducted to determine which variables influence "high risk" women students to persist to graduation from a community college and which variables influence "low risk" women students to drop out of college. The study involved in-depth qualitative interviews with 17 returning adult women over 24 years of age. Study findings supported…

To address the issues of student recruitment and retention in Florida, a three-year research study was conducted. The three phases of the study sought the following: (1) to describe barriers to recruitment and retention of disadvantaged, unemployed, underemployed, out-of-school youth as perceived by students, teachers, counselors, and…