Enhancing the early student experience

This paper is concerned with identifying how the early student experience can be enhanced in order to improve levels of student retention and achievement. The early student experience is the focus of this project as the literature has consistently declared the first year to be the most critical in shaping persistence decisions. Programme managers of courses with high and low retention rates have been interviewed to identify activities that appear to be associated with good retention rates. The results show that there are similarities in the way programmes with high retention are run, with these features not being prevalent on programmes with low retention. Recommendations of activities that appear likely to enhance the early student experience are provided.     

The synergy of minority student persistence and faculty renewal

In response to increased student assessment and accountability concerns, colleges and universities have been called on to increase their efforts to improve the retention rates of an increasingly diverse student body. This article outlines a synergistic strategy for promoting minority student persistence through faculty renewal efforts that encourage faculty to question their cultural beliefs and academic values concerning the teaching and learning enterprise.Dr. Kay F. Norman is currently with Delaware State University where she is Director of the Center for Excellence in Teaching. She also teaches graduate courses in Educational Assessment and Special Education Administration and Supervision. She holds an Ed.D. in Higher Education Administration with emphasis in Student Services from Texas Southern University. Her research interests are in student retention, assessment, and effective teaching. James Norman, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Education at Delaware State University's School of Education. He is a graduate of Ohio State University. Dr. Norman's research interest include special education monitoring and compliance issues, and behavioral management systems.     

Logit analysis of graduate student retention

A logit model is developed to predict the retention of graduate students. The use of the BMDP4F procedure to develop a logit model for graduation student retention is outlined, and the model is applied to data from a major university. In this study, predicted retention rates for master's students were independent of age and sex, but were a function of race/visa status, registration status, and the interactions between academic division and registration status and between academic division and race/visa status. Predicted rates for doctoral students were independent of age and race/visa status, but were a function of registration status, academic division, and the interactions between academic division and registration status and between academic division and sex.     

The influence of prices on graduate student persistence

The topic of how prices influence graduate student persistence has seldom been examined. Using the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study of 1987 to examine the influence of prices on within-year persistence by graduate students, this analysis indicates that graduate students, especially those enrolled in public institutions, are responsive to tuition charges in their persistence decisions. The major implication of this finding is that universities should examine the potential impact of price changes on graduate student persistence when they consider tuition increases each year.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Eighth Annual NASSGP/NCHELP Research Network Conference, March 21, 1991, San Francisco, CA.     

Student engagement in the educational interface: understanding the mechanisms of student success

Student success and retention continue to be of concern for higher education institutions. Wider participation, combined with lower completion rates for non-traditional students, highlights the need for new ways of understanding the student experience to ground policy and practice. This article provides this insight by drawing together a number of key constructs to refine a recent framework of student engagement. We argue that the transition metaphor, focusing on the first year, is limited because it depicts differences between students and institutions as both transient and temporal. Instead, we use a cultural lens to introduce the educational interface as a metaphor for the individual psychosocial space within which institutional and student factors combine and student engagement in learning occurs. Incorporating the interface into the existing framework of student engagement makes three contributions to our understanding of the student experience. First, the educational interface is a tangible way of representing the complex interactions between students and institutions, and how those interactions influence engagement. Second, the refined framework highlights four specific psychosocial constructs: self-efficacy, emotions, belonging and well-being, which, we contend, are critical mechanisms for mediating the interactions between student and institutional characteristics and student engagement and success. Finally, the refined framework helps to explain why some students with demographic characteristics associated with lower completion rates are retained and do go on to successfully complete their studies, while similar others do not. These three contributions, the interface, the key constructs within it being mediating mechanisms and their explanatory utility, provide focus for the design and implementation of curricula and co-curricular initiatives aimed at enhancing student success and retention, and importantly to evaluate the impact of these interventions.     

A cross-sectional study of student teachers’ behaviour management strategies throughout their training years

Despite the importance of behaviour management, many student teachers report being inadequately trained in this area. The aim of this study was to identify the strategies, confidence and reported levels of success in regard to various behaviour management strategies, across 509 first, second, third and fourth year student teachers training to be primary teachers. The most significant differences were found between first and second year student teachers in regard to their use of, and confidence in, initial and later corrective strategies, and between second and third year student teachers in terms of their use of, and confidence in, differentiating curriculum and preventive strategies. The findings have implications for teacher training programs and future research.     

本科院校新增研究生专业教务管理的B/S体系结构研究——以福建工程学院为例

基于B/S架构的研究生教务管理系统,用户通过浏览器就可运行整个系统,根据研究生教育的特点,利用Internet网建立专门的研究生管理体系,能够使学校更准确地了解本年度研究生的报考情况,同时使考生方便了解我校研究生的招生动态。     

Racial origin and student retention in a Canadian University

In the United States, research into the relationship between racial origin and university attrition has a relatively long history. In such research it has usually been found that particularly Black students and those of Hispanic origin have far lower retention rates than White students and those of Asian origin. In Canada, however, it has only been in recent years that large numbers of non-Whites from primarily British Commonwealth countries have immigrated to Canadian cities. As a result, there has been no investigation of race and student retention in Canadian universities.In this article, attention will focus on the first year voluntary and involuntary withdrawal of students of various racial origins enrolled full-time at York University, Canada's third largest university, located in Toronto. Students who withdraw involuntarily are those who because of low academic standing are debarred from continuing for a second year. Information for the study was obtained through end-of-year surveys carried out in 1993, 1994, and 1995 and from administrative records.In general it was found that differences in overall retention rates for Blacks and students of South Asian, Chinese, other non-European, and European origins are small. Moreover, a logistic regression analysis indicated that while racial origin is not a predictor of voluntary withdrawal from university at the end of first year, it has a slight effect on involuntary withdrawal.     

The interaction of student and program variables for the purpose of developing a model for predicting graduation from graduate programs over a 10-year period

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether there is some factor or set of factors which will predict the probability of graduation from doctoral programs. This study concentrated on two areas: (a) the factors available to the selection committee when the students apply for admission into graduate programs, and (b) those factors emerging after admission, resulting from the students' meeting program-imposed requirements for graduation. Data were collected from the file of each student admitted to the doctoral program in Educational Administration. The results of the study indicated that program variables are more important than admission variables in predicting graduation. and the technique of Path Analysis is highly recommended to study the problem of student progression through graduate departments.     

Relationship between measures of academic quality and undergraduate student attrition: the case of higher education institutions in the Colombian Caribbean region

Undergraduate student attrition is a major concern in higher education. It is usually explained by the impact of student attributes; however, recent developments in student success literature point to the need of exploring institutional practices that may impact a student's decision to abandon their studies. The current weight of academic quality assurance for Colombian higher education institutions (HEI) and what such measures may mean for how HEI fulfill their missions indicates the need to consider a possible relation between such quality measures and undergraduate student attrition. Using official databases from the Colombian Ministry of Education for the year 2009, this study explores through analysis of variance the relationship between attrition and three measures of academic quality: accreditation status, professional test scores required to graduate (Saber Pro Exam) and the number of research groups at HEI. The scope of the study is the Colombian Caribbean region and the sample includes 19 HEI. Study results demonstrate that the percentage of accredited undergraduate programs at HEI was the only measure of quality assurance, out of the three explored, that showed a statistically significant relationship with undergraduate student attrition rates.     

以能力为本 拓宽大学生就业渠道

高等教育大众化的今天,高校毕业生的就业越来越难。社会原因、学校原因、学生个人原因是造成大学生就业难的不同因素,其中毕业生综合能力下降是就业难的核心因素。解决毕业生就业难的关键是提高毕业生的综合能力,也就是要培养学生的基本能力、关键能力、核心能力。要坚持以能力为本,循序渐进,努力拓宽毕业生就业渠道。     

Transitioning From On-Campus to Online in a Master of Science Nursing Program: a Comparative Study of Academic Success

This comparative study examined the academic success rates of online graduate nursing students by comparing final grades to the on-campus cohort of graduate nursing students prior to the program transitioning online. Analysis was conducted by identifying and comparing final course grades in 4 required Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) courses over a period of 6 years. Five key themes related to online student success are discussed, including the need for graduate nursing MSN programs to transition to an online format, barriers to online learning, comprehensive program evaluation of an online degree program, online student retention approaches, and exploration of whether online students have been shown to be as academically successful as on-campus students. Results reveal that both cohorts of course delivery modes yield academically successful MSN students and both course delivery modes are providing the MSN program with almost equal pass rates by the students taking the required core courses.     

An investigation of student teachers' knowledge about their own learning

Twenty-nine student teachers from a large metropolitan university in Queensland, Australia were interviewed at the beginning (Time 1) and end (Time 2) of a year-long graduate diploma in education to investigate the nature of their knowledge about learning and changes in such knowledge over the year. At Time 1 and Time 2 most students thought learning should be meaningful and preferred to use transformative learning approaches. However, students indicated a willingness to engage in reproductive approaches to learning if the content to be learned was uninteresting, workloads were high, or assessment was examination-focussed. The results also indicated that while many students did not experience significant changes in their knowledge about learning over the year, they believed that transformative learning had become more of a focus for them. Investigating student teachers' knowledge about learning has implications for effective learning in teacher education programs.     

School psychology graduate education retention research characteristics: Implications for diversity initiatives in the profession

Lack of racial and ethnic diversity in the school psychology workforce has been a concern since the profession's inception. One solution is to graduate more racially and ethnically diverse individuals from school psychology programs. This structured review explored the characteristics of studies published from 1994 to 2017 that investigated graduate student retention and school psychology. An electronic search that included specified databases, subject terms, and study inclusion criteria along with a manual search of 10 school psychology journals yielded two published, peer‐reviewed studies focused primarily on graduate student retention and school psychology over the 23‐year span. Two researchers coded the studies using a rigorous coding process with high inter‐rater reliability. Findings suggest that mostly Black and White individuals served as participants, undergraduate students represented the largest group sampled, and key school psychology stakeholders’ views were missing. Additionally, programs interested in retaining racially and ethnically diverse students should have a commitment to multicultural issues, expose students to diverse professional networks and mentorship, and cultivate an inclusive program environment. Implications point to a need for more studies focused on school psychology graduate student retention in general and in specific relation to retaining racial and ethnic minoritized students.     

Does accelerating access to higher education lower its quality? The Australian experience

In the pursuit of mass higher education, fears are often expressed that the quality of higher education suffers as access is increased. This quantitative study considers three proxies of educational quality: (1) prior academic achievement of the student, (2) attrition and retention rates and (3) progression rates, to establish whether educational quality suffers when supply is significantly increased. The period of analysis (2009–2011) saw just such an increase in higher education places in Australia, as universities prepared for the removal of all caps on undergraduate domestic student places in 2012. Our analysis reveals that, whilst widening access results in more students with lower levels of academic achievement entering higher education, this does not necessarily equate to a lowering of educational quality. Furthermore, although on average student progression rates dropped slightly, retention rates actually increased in the majority of universities, suggesting high levels of student perseverance. In addition, there were already wide variations in attrition and progression rates between universities, and the changes observed between 2009 and 2011 did not lead to substantial alterations.     

研究生招生工作人员的心理压力及其缓解对策

本文在简要阐述研究生招生工作人员的构成及其职能的基础上,详细分析了招生工作的特点及招生具体工作人员存在的心理压力,提出了劳逸结合,合理安排工作休息时间;坚持原则,正确把握国家招生政策;加强管理,科学规范招生工作流程;严格自律,自觉抵制社会不良风气等缓解招生工作人员心理压力的对策。     

When inputs are outputs: The case of graduate student instructors

We examine graduate student teaching as an input to two production processes: the education of undergraduates and the development of graduate students themselves. Using fluctuations in full-time faculty availability as an instrument, we find undergraduates are more likely to major in a subject if their first course in the subject was taught by a graduate student, a result opposite of estimates that ignore selection. Additionally, graduate students who teach more frequently graduate earlier and are more likely to subsequently be employed by a college or university.     

用西方教育经济理论浅析我国研究生教育改革的必要性

本文运用人力资本理论、筛选理论、劳动力市场划分理论,结合目前研究生教育中出现的主要问题及其原因,分析了研究生教育改革的必要性,并试图提出研究生教育的改革方向。     

Effects of staff and student tutors on student achievement

In the problem-based curriculum of the faculty of Law, students of the first year are guided by staff tutors or undergraduate student tutors in small tutorial groups. In this study, academic achievement of staff tutor-guided groups are compared with student tutor-guided groups. After an eight-week course students' level of academic achievement was tested by essay questions. Two methods of assessing students' performance are used: expert judgements and propositional analysis. Results of both methods used indicate that no differences in academic achievement occur. Students guided by student tutors perform as well as students guided by staff tutors. Several explanations are proposed to account for these results.