The applicability of Tinto's model of retention for first-year students attending church-related colleges and universities is examined. Data collected from entering freshmen at two Midwestern Seventh-day Adventist colleges were used to replicate studies of Tinto's model done in other settings. Based on Tinto's model, indicators of academic and…

This study examined the characteristics of family environment and its relationship to attitudes toward science. Data were collected from over 800 seventh-grade and over 1,400 tenth-grade students during a longitudinal, multi-dimensional study of the relationship between the variables of home, school, and self as related to attitudes toward and…

The introductory management science (MS) course has historically been recognized as one of the most difficult core courses in the business school curriculum. This study uses multiple regression to examine the factors that contribute to the success of undergraduate business students in an MS course, based on data gathered from the college…

Using the Internet to administer homework allows us to determine if students change their homework habits during a semester and if this change results in an improvement in grades.

The purpose of this study was to determine whether good and poor readers of the same age levels differed in their performance on a task which required the integration of semantic-syntactic and grapho-phonic information. Fifteen fourth grade good readers, 15 fourth grade poor readers, and 15 second grade good readers read six sentences that had one…

Conducted to determine which, if any, variables tend to indicate potential success (operationally defined as completing the training program), an analysis examined pre-center characteristics and demographic variables of participants and attempted to apply that data to success in negotiating the Mountain Plains program, a residential, family-based…

A study was conducted to relate the revised Occupation Analysis Inventory (OAI) interest- and need-requirement estimates for a sample of jobs to the interest, need, and satisfaction scores of job incumbents. (The OAI is an instrument containing 622 work elements which are descriptions of work activities and conditions on which jobs and occupations…

During the course of the National Longitudinal Study of the High School Class of 1972 (NLS), a tremendous amount of data will be collected on the educational, vocational, and personal development of high school graduates, and the personal, familial, social, institutional, and cultural factors that contribute to that development. Information of a…

Variables derived from two measures of classroom behavior, direct observation and teacher rating, were used in regression designs with measured intelligence to predict a measure of academic achievement of 69 kindergarten, first, and second grade children. Results suggest that measures of classroom behavior contribute variance to the prediction of…

Traditional predictor variables of SAT scores and high school grades seldom account for more than 16 percent of the variance in student performance in college and graduate school, and they account for even less in decisions of students to leave school. Three studies are presented that added nonintellective variables to the traditional combination…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 28 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: (1) a method of individually appraising the precursory skills of beginning readers; (2) the effects of instructing third grade students in interpretive reading…

Elementary and secondary teachers in Brazil, Jordan, Venezuela, and the United States feel they have a fair amount of autonomy in running their own classrooms, somewhat less autonomy regarding certain miscellaneous job-related matters, and still less autonomy in matters affecting the operation of the school as an organization. The attitudes of a…

A questionnaire was developed and tested in 1980-81 to determine any differences between University of Saskatchewan students who were required to discontinue their studies and students who successfully completed their first year. A list of factors considered to contribute to student failure was developed, and the format involved a personalized…

The decisions made by admissions committee members of the Medical College of Virginia were studied to determine the criteria used to arrive at value judgments and to analyze variations in predicted ratings based on these criteria. All 983 applicants to the 1980-81 entering class of the medical school who underwent file review evaluations (the…

Models that have appeared in the student attrition literature in the past decade and behavioral models from the social sciences that may help explain the dropout process are examined, and an attempt is made to synthesize a causal model of student attrition. The models of Tinto, Spady, and Rootman in the area of student attrition, and models of…