In 1987, the New York City Board of Education established the following three placement units responsible for improving school attendance and preventing dropping out among at-risk youth: (1) the Central Placement Unit (CPU); (2) the Persons In Need of Supervision (PINS) Diversion Unit; and (3) the Bronx District Attorney's Educational Outreach…

Decisions about whether to promote a student should be made on a variety of both academic and social grounds, and the curriculum should be restructured to meet the student's needs if retention is chosen. As with other academic/punitive measures, poor Blacks and Hispanics tend to be retained disproportionate to their numbers because minorities are…

There is a strong popular belief that self-concept and motivation are intricately related to performance. To test this theory, a study was conducted to determine if increases in student self-enhancement and intrinsic motivation would explain increased academic performance. Students (N=472) in experimental groups completed interest inventories,…

Previous research has suggested that extrinsic rewards operate to decrease intrinsic motivation to perform a task when they are offered for an initially intrinsically motivating task and then removed. To determine the initial intrinsic motivation of studying, 170 Canadian community college students were divided into one control and four treatment…

Project LOUVERTURE is a bilingual education program offering instructional and non-instructional services to Haitian high school students of limited English proficiency who have been identified as potential dropouts. Instruction includes English as a second language, native language skills, basic skills, content area subjects, and cultural…

The nature of adolescent sexuality, pregnancy and childbearing is undergoing important transformations that have made early parenthood more visible and problematic. A review of the literature confirms that adolescent pregnancy is far from a random event. Research indicates differences, often substantial, among those who have sex or abstain and…

These 16 institutional research monographs summarize major research efforts at South Oklahoma City Junior College (SOCJC) during fiscal year 1982. The research monographs cover: (1) current educational and employment activities of 1980 graduates of SOCJC; (2) national trends in finance, enrollments, programs, and faculty at two-year colleges; (3)…

A project was conducted to increase student retention in adult basic education (ABE) programs in Arizona through the publication and distribution of a statewide newspaper for ABE students. Using an Apple Macintosh micro-computer, editorial staff of the newspaper, entitled the Express Press, collected articles written by ABE students and…

It is argued that the Federal government's youth employment and training policy is at a crossroads and that a budget-cutting Administration and a deficit-conscious Congress face a choice between shortchanging American youth with subminimum pay or investing in employment, training, and education for the present and future of young people. First,…

In the midst of a period of major educational reform, questions about standards, quality, and excellence have dominated at the expense of questions about access and equity. To begin with, certain myths must be challenged. The belief that schools were once uniformly better than today is a distortion of history. So is the belief that attempts at…

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…

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…

A study made at the University of South Carolina compared the survival (persistence) rates of full-time black and white students who entered the university as freshmen during the fall semesters of 1973, 1974, and 1975. Survival is defined as the percentage of students in an entering class who return for a second or subsequent years' enrollment at…

The undergraduate student body in the College of Engineering at the University of South Florida was studied to determine if there were significant differences in the grade-point ratios (GPRs), withdrawals, and forgivenesses of students in several categories. (The foregiveness policy permits a student to repeat a course and have that grade computed…

In winter and spring of 1981 a follow-up study of 1979-80 Oregon community college program graduates and early leavers was conducted to gather data about the employment and educational activities of community-college-prepared vocational students. It also sought to obtain information from employers about vocational program completers and leavers…