The purpose of this document, the first of a two-part report, is to examine doctoral education delivered at public universities and health-related institutions in Texas. The second part of the report, due in October, 2004, will provide recommendations for enhancing its effectiveness in closing the gaps in participation, success, excellence, and…

The typical high school has not changed significantly over the past 50 years. Faculty members are segregated into departments based on their subject, and students rush from one 50-minute class to another throughout the seven-hour day. Reform efforts, however, are growing both nationally and in California. Reformers say that high school students…

This paper examines how the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future will address the high teacher attrition rates. Sections discuss: "The Conventional Wisdom is Wrong" (it is important to focus on how to keep the good teachers who have been recruited, trained, and hired rather than ask how to find and prepare more teachers); "A Closer…

Because of concerns that not enough students who start college are completing a bachelor's degree, and in response to a Congressional request, the General Accounting Office (GAO) examined the extent to which students who enroll in a 4-year college complete a bachelor's degree and the factors that affect completion. The study also investigated what…

Another new title addressing the issue of teacher retention, this practical guide is full of "real-life" strategies and suggestions for coping with the challenges facing teachers today. An excellent resource for beginning teachers, it includes chapters on classroom management, relationships with colleagues and students, setting goals, curriculum,…

West Virginia's future is contingent on continuing to improve high school and college graduation rates and ensuring that graduates have the knowledge and skills required for 21st-century jobs. The state population is declining, and educational pipeline estimates for 20251 predict a substantial decrease in the population of working and young…

In 2004, Edvantia, Inc. (formerly AEL) and the National Association of State Boards of Education (NASBE) initiated an effort to identify successful strategies for recruiting and retaining highly qualified teachers in rural areas. They reviewed non-rural-specific and rural-specific research and practice literature, surveyed rural superintendents…

Purpose: Despite medical schools having some system in place to review student progress and promote students (referred to hereafter as academic review and promotions; ARP), little research has been done with the purpose of understanding personality characteristics of the students who appear before an ARP committee or governing body. A recent study…

To more accurately reflect student attributes and enrollment patterns of today's freshmen, and to account for the impact of a new state-funded scholarship, this study expands the set of variables typically found in retention studies by putting greater focus on first-year academic performance, concurrent enrollment, financial aid support, and…

A longitudinal study with 6 years of cohort data examined the association between persistence at a private liberal arts university and participation in a study-abroad program. After adjustment for several factors that are known to affect persistence, results of regression analysis showed that students in the study-abroad program persisted longer…

Using multi-spell discrete time binary logistic regression, this study examined sequential occurrences of students' departures and returns over the period of six years. The model included time-invariant (gender, ethnicity, parents' educational attainment, family income, timing of matriculation, high school performance, and geographic origin) and…

Attrition, retention, and program completion of doctoral students were studied at a university. One objective was to be able to determine, at the time of admission, which students were most likely to achieve success, defined as degree completion. The subject pool was 168 graduate students admitted to the doctoral program in educational…

This study sought to examine the factors, both quantitative and qualitative, that may predict the doctoral students in the field of educational administration who will be most likely to persist to degree conferral. The study was conducted in two phases. First, a survey instrument was administered to 152 doctoral students who began a program of…

This study explored teachers' reasons for teaching in Catholic secondary schools and examined why they stayed in Catholic secondary schools. Data from in-depth, semi-structured interviews with four teachers representing different ethnicities, religions, and genders indicated that respondents considered the environment in Catholic schools to be…

This report builds on previous studies of early attrition from postsecondary education by providing a more comprehensive look at students' reasons for early total departure from postsecondary education. Using the 1996/1998 Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study to examine attrition in the first 3 years of postsecondary education, the…