Learning communities have been a part of the higher educational landscape since the 1980s. Despite their widespread use, research regarding their effectiveness with enhancing retention is sparse. This study describes a freshmen curricular learning community linking courses required for all business majors. Retention for students taking courses in…

Mentoring, and to a greater extent support from high-level administrators, has been shown to decrease worker turnover in general, but little is known about its differential impact on minority workers. Utilizing four waves of the Schools and Staffing Survey, we find that administrative support is most strongly associated with retention for minority…

It is known that students undertaking distance education are less likely to complete their studies, a problem regularly considered by governments and media. This correlational study seeks to provide an understanding of distance students' satisfaction and their intention to persist within the concept of the student experience. In addition to…

The purpose of this mixed methodology study was to empirically investigate how adolescents with learning disabilities/differences report and experience self-determination, grit, mindset, and optimism. Using items from established scales, we gathered survey data (n=27) as well as interview data (n=23), and examined the ability of mindset, grit, and…

Students respond to classroom activities and achievement outcomes with a variety of emotions that can impact student success. One emotion students experience is anxiety, which can negatively impact student performance and persistence. This study investigated what types of classroom anxiety were related to student performance in the course and…

Learning Support Services at the University of California, Santa Cruz is intended to aid students--particularly those who are at highest risk of academic failure--to master the required material and succeed in their courses. It includes two primary components: modified supplemental instruction (MSI) and tutoring. This study uses data from…

This article presents an independent large-scale experimental evaluation of two online goal-setting interventions. Both interventions are based on promising findings from the field of social psychology. Approximately 1,400 first-year undergraduate students at a large Canadian university were randomly assigned to complete one of two online…

Community colleges have long been recognized as pivotal institutions for broadening educational opportunity for a variety of marginalized populations, including first-generation students. These institutions are also an important starting point for students desiring to eventually earn a bachelor's degree in a science, technology, engineering, or…

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) face persistent challenges related to student performance, including high rates of attrition and low student achievement scores. Previous studies that have examined the performance of students in MOOCs have done so using qualitative analysis and the quantitative analysis of small samples. This study is the first…

Distance education has historically had lower completion rates. Several models of persistence, for on-campus students, indicate that students' financial status affects their decision to persist. This study involved providing distance education students' financial aid in the form of institutional scholarships (N = 545) at Penn State University in…

Teacher victimization is a relatively understudied phenomenon that may contribute to teacher turnover. The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between teacher reports of victimization and teachers leaving their school and the profession. Using nationally representative data (n = 104,840) from the Schools and Staffing Survey, we…

This paper investigates the role of leadership training in developing voice in adult learners. Twenty-one (21) adult education programs were randomly selected for evaluation: 13 programs received an 8-hour leadership training and 12 subsequently completed a leadership project; the remaining eight served as control programs. Qualitative methods…

Teacher recruitment and retention problems hinder large urban school districts from assigning the equitable number of quality teachers, thus further adding to the existing high-caliber teacher shortage at historically underserved schools. In some school districts, policies on seniority and transfer combined with inadequate administrator support,…

MOOCs and online courses have notoriously high attrition [1]. One challenge is that it can be difficult to tell if students fail to complete because of disinterest or because of course difficulty. Utilizing a Deep Knowledge Tracing framework, we account for student engagement by including course interaction covariates. With these, we find that we…

In an effort to better understand the higher education outcomes of students with disabilities in Maryland, the Maryland Higher Education Commission (MHEC), in partnership with the state's higher education institutions and the Maryland Department of Disabilities, created a survey administered to colleges and universities in Maryland to collect…