Understanding and preventing high school failure is a national priority. Structural strain and general deviance theories attempt to explain late high school failure. The authors tested the hypotheses that general (vs. specific) deviance and academic competence mediate the relationships between structural strain factors (gender, ethnicity, and…

An examination of social cognitive career theory (SCCT; R. W. Lent, S. D. Brown, & G. Hackett, 1994, 2000) factors contributing to the college expectations of high school students (N = 87) in rural Appalachia was conducted. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses revealed support for the role of SCCT variables in predicting expectations to…

Homework gives students an opportunity to practice important college-level physics skills. A switch to Web-based homework alters the nature of feedback received, potentially changing the pedagogical benefit. Calculus- and algebra-based introductory physics students enrolled in large paired lecture sections at a public university completed homework…

Purpose: To evaluate the effectiveness of a screening instrument (the Swedish Communication Screening at 18 months of age; SCS18), derived from the Swedish MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory, in identification of 18-month-old children who will be severely language disabled by 3 years of age, the authors (a) analyzed which SCS18's…

This study examined the ability of future certainty--an individual's perception of future stability, operationalized as the likelihood of certain life outcomes--to explain variance in delinquency and school adjustment, while controlling for economic, neighborhood, and family factors, among a cross-sectional sample of 1422 male and 1562 female…

This book reports on a study examining the relative effects of family and day care experiences on young children. The study explored the full range of children's experiences in a wide variety of settings and examined how those experiences are related to the children's development. Chapter 1 presents and compares different forms of contemporary day…

This study examined variables related to college predisposition among students of different ethnic groups who attended schools enrolling high percentages of minority students and high percentages of students participating in free or subsidized school lunch programs. It is based on a subset of data from the 1988 National Education Longitudinal…

The nature of the relationships among contemporary family variables and school achievement is examined in this collection of articles. Divided into two parts, the collection examines related processes and issues. In the first part, the chapters and authors are: (1) "The Family-School Relationships Model" (Bruce A. Ryan and Gerald R.…

This report reviews the literature on minority nursing students including the identification of high risk students, admission policies, evaluation methods and prediction of success of nursing students since the mid-1980s. The review finds that many variables have been used in research studies to identify at-risk students, to predict nursing…

A study followed 445 Wellesley College (Massachusetts) women students matriculating in 1991 through their college years to isolate factors associated with persistence in math and science. Data were gathered through three surveys (at orientation, at the end of the sophomore year, and before graduation) and in focus groups over the 4 years of the…

In response to changing management and budgetary strategies that have been driving decision making to the lowest administrative levels, institutional researchers have been attempting to identify indicators which can be used to evaluate institutional performance and progress. This paper reviews efforts to introduce departmental operational…

This study, a collaborative undertaking between the college of health professions and the medical college at Thomas Jefferson University (Pennsylvania), was part of a larger project intended to examine whether a selected set of academic, demographic, and psychosocial variables are predictive of nursing and allied health student academic…

This report examines the relationship between Maryland students' academic performance and experiences in high school and how well they did in their initial year in college. It includes students who graduated from a Maryland high school in the 1993-94 school year and who enrolled at a Maryland college or university during the 1994-95 academic year.…

A study investigated the reliability of international students' English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) class performance as a predictor of academic performance. Subjects were 169 international students at Portland State University (Oregon) whose freshman and sophomore grade point averages (GPAs) and English language test scores for each language skill…

This study examined the presence of Ely's conditions that facilitate innovation, as reported by Internet-using teachers in leading-edge schools. The conditions that make up the framework are: (1) dissatisfaction with the status quo; (2) existence of knowledge and skills; (3) availability of resources; (4) availability of time; (5) existence of…