A program was implemented for increasing writing and problem solving skills to increase educational achievement. The targeted populations consisted of sixth and seventh grade students from two growing middle class suburban communities located in the Midwest. The problems of inadequate writing and problem solving skills were documented through data…

In 1992, Missouri's Coordinating Board for Higher Education (CBHE) adopted 24 higher education goals that would fulfill its vision statement and address needs identified in its task force report. Baseline data for these goals were gathered in 1993, and annual data have been collected through state and federal surveys completed by the state's…

In 1992, a study was conducted to determine whether Grossmont College (GC) was meeting its five stated goals of excellence, retention, access, transfer, and diversity. Data were gathered on: (1) student access, including a comparison of applicants and enrollees, the ethnicity of freshmen, participation in testing and orientation programs, English…

This report from The Nation's Report Card provides further information about students' lack of preparation in science, their apparent disinclination to enroll in challenging science courses, and the comparatively low achievement of Back and Hispanic students, females, economically disadvantaged students, and non-college bound students. These…

A study was done to evaluate Partners for Valued Youth (PVY), an instructional cross-age tutoring program in San Antonio (Texas) designed to reduce dropout rates among Hispanic limited-English proficient (LEP) middle-school children, who are at risk of leaving school. The program has these students tutor younger, elementary school students. The…

This handbook provides information about an innovative model, Partners for Valued Youth (PVY), that encourages "at-risk" students to stay in school and to set broader goals for themselves through a cross-age tutoring experience in which at-risk middle school students tutor younger, elementary school students. After a preface, the…

This paper evaluates the effectiveness of the Beating the Odds (BTO) program of the Houston (Texas) schools in the 1990-91 school year, the third and final year of Phase I of the program. The BTO program provided training workshops for teachers of at-risk students and direct counseling and social service support for at-risk students in a selected…

This planning guide and collection of resources is designed to help higher education faculty become more aware of current research and thinking on adult learning and to participate actively in institutional changes that make campuses, particularly in the California State University system, better able to meet the needs of adult students. Each of…

This final report documents achievements of a project to assess social impact and achievement gains resulting from the use of interactive videodisc technology to teach fractions in mainstreamed classrooms across multicultural settings. Subjects (N=294) were regular upper elementary students and students with mild handicaps (MH) in Utah, Wyoming,…

An overview of the development and evaluation of an early alert procedure for identifying and assisting students experiencing academic difficulty at Irvine Valley College (IVC), in California, is provided in this report. The first section introduces IVC's new personal computer-based Early Alert Retention System (EARS) software, as well as the…

Prepared in response to guidelines established by the Maryland Higher Education Commission, this two-part report presents data on student learning outcomes and minority student achievement at Prince George's Community College (PGCC) in Largo, Maryland. Part 1 focuses primarily on fall 1991 entrants but includes longitudinal data where applicable.…

This study assessed the utility of using both the American College Testing (ACT) Program composite score and high school grade point average (GPA) as predictors of students' success in college, as measured by the GPA at the end of the students' first semester in college. Data were obtained from 420 first-time entering freshmen at a medium-sized…

Following an accreditation site visit which determined that the part-time faculty at Pima Community College (PCC) accounted for 80% of the total faculty on a headcount basis, a study was conducted comparing the characteristics of full- and part-time faculty, and, in particular of full- and part-time science faculty. In addition, student grades…

In 1991 Pennsylvania began implementation of a direct writing assessment at the sixth-grade and ninth-grade levels. A total of 18,758 sixth graders and 16,575 ninth graders wrote a response to 1 of 9 prompts reflecting 3 modes of writing. A six-point holistic scale was used to score the papers, with two readers scoring each paper. A third reader,…

As a result of the dual roles of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) to measure trends in academic achievement over time and to measure what students know and can do, a scale anchoring procedure was developed. Although the NAEP provides norm-referenced information about student proficiency, the scale anchoring procedure gives…