The Council for Adult and Experiential Learning (CAEL) has conducted several studies on the relationship between prior learning assessment (PLA) and adult student outcomes. Do Methods Matter? PLA, Portfolio Assessment, and the Road to Completion and Persistence presents the findings from a study that examines the relationship between PLA and…

Launched in 2009, the college completion agenda aims to significantly increase the number of community college graduates by 2020. While the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) (2012) believes that the goals of the completion agenda can be achieved without institutions sacrificing their mission or reducing student services, little is…

This Appreciative Inquiry (AI) study was conducted to create the framework for the Differentiated Support Model (DSM). The DSM is a framework of individualized support for first year teachers that can be applied in any school district alongside a mentoring program or without a mentoring program. The DSM was designed to be implemented by an…

We study a teacher incentive policy in Washington State that awards a financial bonus to National Board certified teachers in high poverty schools. Using a regression discontinuity design, we find that the bonus policy increased the proportion of certified teachers in bonus-eligible schools by improving hiring, increasing certification rates of…

This qualitative study identified the factors that contributed to the success experienced by students with learning disabilities in their first year of college. The primary factors that emerged from student interviews were their attitudes about higher education, and their personal attributes including motivation, maturity, and persistence.…

The literature on human motivation and persistence posits that to be stewards of environments that both challenge and support students requires more than cultivating grit. In this article, the author explores why a truly developmental educational experience must transcend the fostering of individuals' grit and resilience. At its best, it must lead…

College student retention constitutes a long-standing and critical problem for many colleges and universities. Although the average national rate of first-to-second year persistence stands at 68.5%, rates for types of colleges and universities vary from a low of 56.4% for 2-year public colleges to a high of 81.5% for private PhD-granting…

Grow Your Own (GYO) teacher programs help address teacher shortages, retention issues and teacher diversity by engaging in a variety of strategies that aim to recruit teachers from local communities in hopes that the pool of candidates will increase in diversity and will be more likely to stay teaching in the community. This is a summary of a…

The demand for graduates with Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) degrees continues to rapidly increase. By 2018, the majority of positions that require a minimum of a bachelor degree will necessitate considerable mathematics and/or science training. In order for students to access, persist, and complete STEM majors, they must…

This study examined persistence to graduation at a public Midwestern university from the perspective of the constructs of spirituality and grit, using historical demographic, academic, and survey data from nine cohorts of students. Significant correlation between spirituality and grit was found, leading to the development of the SPIRIT theory and…

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how preparation for teaching culturally and linguistically diverse children influences early childhood teachers' motivation to remain in teaching. This study is grounded in Bandura's self-efficacy theory. Early childhood teachers were sent an online survey and asked about their teacher preparation, job…

US colleges and universities have known for decades that higher percentages of racial and ethnic subgroups leave STEM majors, contributing to racial inequality in STEM professions. Many interventions have been developed, yet the disparity persists. A partial flipped pedagogical model is presented for a General Chemistry 1 (GChem1) course that is…

The California Community College System is an entry point for the majority of first-generation college students. This case study of a community college in Southern California examined the experiences and motivations of both Latinx students in their major/career decision-making process and the community college counseling faculty who serve, educate…

This action research study was born out of the researcher's anecdotal observations that often the students in her remedial math courses who do not appear to form relationships with their classmates are the same students who fail to complete the course successfully. The purpose of this quantitative action research study was to determine whether…

Self-efficacy in mathematics is related to engagement, persistence, and academic performance. Prior research focused mostly on examining changes to students' self-efficacy across large time intervals (months or years), and paid less attention to changes at the level of lesson sequences. Knowledge of how self-efficacy changes during a sequence of…