College Student Success: A Qualitative Modeling Approach

This qualitative study highlighted student perspectives on barriers to success at a community college located in a south Texas city. The study examined barriers to student success, the knowledge that successful students possess to overcome the barriers, and the actions that successful students undertake to overcome the barriers. Padilla's (2004 Padilla , R. V. ( 1999 ). College student retention: Focus on success . Journal of College Student Retention , 1 ( 2 ), 131 – 145 .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) theoretical framework and methods for modeling student success provided the conceptual framework for the study. The data analysis resulted in the development of a local student success model and an implementation model for student services at the subject campus.     

Collaboration and Support for Student Success

This article discusses issues that impact student success in the United States. Increasing the number of college graduates could bring greater economic equity and help the nation remain competitive. However, the rates of student success in community colleges and universities are considered low with necessary gains requiring a broad base of collaboration. Toward this goal, the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices developed Common College Completion Metrics that enable states to monitor achievement and progress at each of their higher education institutions. In addition, the government and private foundations are supporting initiatives designed to increase student retention. Interviews with dropouts have identified their reasons for withdrawal and the conditions that would have allowed them to stay in school. Some other fundamental changes for consideration to improve graduation rates involve adoption of better study habits by students, willingness of faculty to discontinue the general studies requirement, a well-defined support role for families, and public approval of an education entitlement that provides high school graduates free access to further schooling needed for employment.     

Finding Diego: A Bilingual Student Integrates School,Language, and Identity

This article presents a mixed-methods case study of Diego, a bilingual teen who completed public school in Florida. During adolescence, Diego negotiated multiple identities: successful student, Mexican American, bilingual, and typical U.S. teenager. Diego provided interviews and bilingual (English/Spanish) writing (narrative/expository) in 2008 (at age 12, Grade 6) and in 2012 (at age 16, Grade 10). A qualitative analysis of his interviews and a quantitative linguistic analysis of his writing reveal central elements of Diego’s language development as related to academic English and identity. Educational implications for working with bilingual adolescents are discussed.     

美国学校辅导员的学生成功技能干预

学生成功技能是指学业成功所必备的技能。学校辅导员的学生成功技能干预是美国学业成就研究领域的一项新进展。研究表明,通过辅导员实施学生成功技能干预可以有效地提高学业成就。     

Student and Police Partnerships: Cultivating Student Success and Community Development

Scholarship on service-learning and experiential learning increasingly demonstrates benefits for student access and success, but evidence is still needed of the impact of these strategies on sustainable development of communities and their infrastructure. This case study examines a university Police and Society course that partners with four police departments to use both experiential learning and service-learning in the form of ride-alongs, simulation trainings, and written and physical examinations, as well as hosting a police–community relations event. Focus groups of students and officers reveal how service-learning and experiential learning build capacity for police–community relations. Orienting students toward officer procedures, requirements, and culture creates a learning opportunity for both students and departments, while police–community relations activities humanize officers and build public understanding and trust.     

Community College Study Abroad: Implications for Student Success

The aim of this research is to explore whether participation in study abroad by community college students impacts levels of engagement and if there is a connection between studying abroad and academic achievement. While university-level studies have a history in exploring these questions, the same is not true for community colleges. The California Community College Student Outcomes Abroad Research project (CCC SOAR) uses a mixed methods design to examine data that evidences how participation in study abroad programs not only has implications for personal development and global learning, but also has a range of indicators of academic success variables. Data show that there is a range of positive outcomes that occur as a result of studying abroad for all students across an array of early, midstream, and terminal outcomes due to engagement-enhancing components such as shared common experiences, nurturing behavior from faculty, and increased student interaction in collaborative activities.     

The Impact of On-campus Student Growth on First-year Student Engagement and Success

During the past two decades institutions of all types have sought to expand and enhance residential facilities. Institutional focus on scale, configuration, amenities, and academic integration has sought to leverage prior research documenting the multiple and often positive impacts of on-campus residence. Although institutional size has been documented to differentially impact student engagement [Kezar, A. J. (2006). NASPA Journal 43(1): 87–114], few studies, however, have directly explored the effect of residential expansion on student engagement. This study, based on a sample of 731 first-time freshmen explores NSSE results before and after the opening of a residential facility that doubled on-campus living at a single, metropolitan institution. Results indicate limited positive differences after opening, and suggest that structure, in the form of size, does not, in and of itself, contribute significantly to shifting engagement. Additionally, these results suggest an alternative method for using NSSE data in institutional analyses.     

Personality and Student Teaching Success

The relationship between personality factors of education students and their success in student teaching was explored in relation to the student teacher’s sex and level of pupils taught. The IPAT Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire was administered to all education majors at Florida Atlantic University and the student teaching grade was collected for those students (N = 362) completing the education program.

A 3 × 2 × 2 Manova was employed wherein the level of pupil taught, teacher sex, and student teaching grade served as independent variables and the 16 personality scores as dependent variables. Significant effects were grade achieved in student teaching and sex. Separate discriminant functions were derived to separate both males and females with respect to student teaching grade. The percentage of hits resulting from subsequent classification of a replication sample was found too low to validate the personality discriminant model as a student teaching grade predictor.     

发展中国家少见的成功范例 ——南非学生贷款案例分析

发展中国家学生贷款的失败案例随处可见,但南非学生贷款却是少有的成功案例.南非学生贷款通达了目标人群,回收效果好,管理成本可控.其成功的根本原因在于,政府以立法的手段将追求教育公平的理念落到了实处,政府不仅积极地投入财政资金,还赋予有关机构一定的义务,协助和参与回收学生贷款.     

SIRIUS Academics: A Multidimensional Initiative to Improve Student Retention and Success

SIRIUS Academics is a partnership of educators, technical experts, and corporate sponsors assembled to produce a highly interactive textbook replacement model for use in all course delivery modes. The model promotes student retention and success by integrating learning and motivation research, embedded assessments, and enriched multimedia content for student engagement.     

Bringing Student Responsibility to Life: Avenues to Personalizing High Schools for Student Success

This study examines how school structures and policies shape school culture to ultimately influence student success in one urban high school. We develop a model that explains how caring and personalized connections between students and teachers, coupled with a focus on academic press and support, interact with teacher efficacy to influence student self-efficacy, student attachment to school, and ultimately greater student achievement. We collected data through focus group and individual interviews with students, teachers, and leaders, classroom observations, and school artifacts. Data were analyzed using the constant comparative method allowing for the emergence of important patterns. The data revealed several interrelated structures and processes that support teacher and student efficacy and ultimately instill in students a responsibility for their own learning. This case study highlights the need for administrators to develop buy-in from teachers around a cohesive vision in order for structural reforms to be effective.     

University of Virginia Graduate Mentoring Institute: A Model Program for Graduate Student Success

This study examines an innovative model program for the mentorship of diverse graduate students entitled the Inter-Ethnic/Interdisciplinary Mentoring Institute for Graduate Education (i.e., Mentoring Institute), which was established by the Graduate Student Diversity Programs in the Office of the Vice President for Research at the University of Virginia (UVa). The Mentoring Institute was created to promote an inclusive environment for graduate students from diverse backgrounds as well as to provide support for and increase the number of students of color who successfully matriculate and graduate from UVa. A comprehensive program evaluation was conducted that assesses the mentoring experiences of UVa graduate students who participate in the Mentoring Institute. The evaluation data reveals how graduate students’ involvement in the Mentoring Institute has positively impacted their academic and social experiences as well as their feelings of connectedness to UVa's professional community. The evaluation also assesses ongoing activities, professional trainings, workshops, and other support mechanisms provided for graduate students by the Mentoring Institute. In all, graduate students who participated in the Mentoring Institute evaluation indicated that the program has contributed significantly to their academic success, social well being, and feelings of connectedness to the UVa graduate school community. This study should particularly benefit administrators, faculty, students, and higher education professionals who are interested in multicultural graduate student development at predominately White institutions of higher education.     

Different Disciplines Require Different Motivations for Student Success

This article reports an investigation of undergraduate motivation to learn. A Likert-type rating scale measure of motivation incorporated the general motivational dimensions identified by previous investigators, as well as a systematic theoretical framework that is more novel, and attempts to acknowledge the role of discipline-specific factors in motivation to learn. The motivation questionnaire was evaluated by measuring its success in explaining the academic achievement of biology, history, computing, planning, anthropology, geology, food science and nutrition, and education students (n = 380) in standard university assessments. The findings reveal that student performance is better explained by within- than across-discipline indexes of motivation, probably because some types of motivation lead to success in some disciplines but failure in others. Furthermore, items based on the theoretical framework developed to underpin the questionnaire (which distinguishes outcome from process incentives) were also found to explain more variation in student performance than general motivation items. Some practical implications of the findings are considered.     

Late Registration: Continued Impact on Student Success

Nearly a decade ago, Smith, Street, and Olivarez (2002 Smith , A. B. , Street , M. A. , & Olivarez , A. ( 2002 ). Early, regular, and late registration and community college student success: A case study . Community College Journal of Research and Practice , 26 ( 3 ), 261 – 273 .[Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar]) discussed the impact of a late registration policy on students at a community college in Texas. Their study revealed that the policy was detrimental to student success and should be discontinued. There are still colleges, however, that continue the policy of late registration, and this study examines the impact on student success at one community college in Florida. The results reflect that students who register on or after the first day of class are not as successful academically when compared to students who registered early.