Over the past thirty-five years, the rates of retention and graduation among African American males attending colleges and universities in the U.S. have declined. Many institutions of higher education have responded to this problem by reexamining their efforts at retaining and graduating Black males. Interventions are being created across the…

Record numbers of students flocked to college campuses this fall with high hopes of obtaining what many say is the new prerequisite for a middle class life: a college degree. But the harsh reality is that little more than half those bright-eyed college freshmen, on average, will actually finish. The gap between access and completion has put a new…

Learning Communities (LC) in higher education can serve as powerful connectors among individuals, particularly when integrating minority and White students. We conducted 24 in-depth interviews, using qualitative research methodology, with the 2004 cohort of LC students from a private, selective, Midwest university. Seniors at the time of…

Have you ever watched a televised college football or basketball game where they show the starting lineup's academic majors? If so, you may have noticed that many of the student athletes have the same academic majors, be it communications, criminal justice, sociology, etc. Nevertheless, many have taken notice and labeled this phenomenon as…

This annual report describes self-reported attitudes and motivations of today's first-year college students throughout the nation, based on survey responses from a sizable sample of freshmen attending college during the current academic year, 2011-2012. Among the highlights: (1) Compared to their female counterparts, many more incoming first-year…

The discussion about rigor is not new. Ever since the release of A Nation at Risk (1983) the debate about the quality of American schools has continued. Adoption of No Child Left Behind (2001) raised the debate to a new level. For the first time schools were held accountable for the achievement of every child, not just the most capable. Across the…

In response to perceived academic unpreparedness on the part of first year students, in the second semester of 2010 a number of departments in the Faculties of Arts, Commerce, Administration and Law (CAL), and Science at the University of Zululand (Unizulu) opted to use the Department of Higher Education and Training's Teaching Development Grant…

Research suggests a compelling correlation between teacher behavior and effective learning environments. Focusing on the evidence-based teaching skill of offering behavior-specific praise (BSP), the researchers worked with three elementary-level general educators in a tiered model of training generally known as response to intervention (RtI).…

This paper utilises the theories of Archer to explore the impact of student "internal conversations" upon the development of reflexive approaches employed by work-based students (WBS). The study informing this paper draws on the voices of a range of WBS on a Foundation Degree in Educational Support within a new university. A range of reflexivities…

More than five million U.S. students are English language learners (ELLs), or 57% more than a decade ago. If that growth continues, sooner or later, all teachers will teach ELLs. But many teachers are unprepared for this challenge. They might presume that "good teaching" helps ELLs learn content (de Jong and Harper 2008) or that an English-only…

The focus of this article is on the experiences of staff members involved in a student support programme. The experiential, social, and student-centred approaches incorporated in this programme provided not only students, but also academics with pathways to lifelong learning. Functioning in a community of practice (CoP) (with students and also…

In this longitudinal study, we investigated the role of word reading and mathematical difficulties measured in 9th grade as factors for receiving educational support for learning in upper secondary education in Grades 10 to 12 (from ages 16 to 19) and furthermore as predictors of dropout from upper secondary education within 5 years after…

Through a 5-year qualitative case study of an inclusive high school, we examined students' experiences of self-determination. We conducted analyses of multiple interviews with students, parents, teachers, guidance staff, and administrators using grounded theory methods and guided by self-determination conceptual frameworks. Explicit expectations…

This study explores whether students from low-income families and racial/ethnic minority groups have the opportunity to benefit in what is arguably the most rigorous type of credit-based transition program: the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP). The analyses first describe national longitudinal trends in characteristics of…

Listening to and reflecting on the voices and personal stories of adolescent students with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is critically important to developing more inclusive approaches to their education. This article considers the experiences of nine adolescents with an ASD on their inclusive education in a large urban secondary school in…