Educational Forecasting at the University of Akron

The purpose of this study was to examine the power of quality of learning experience (QLE) indicators in predicting juniors’ and seniors’ persistence and attrition and to identify the relative salience of each of the QLE components in explaining persistence. Two different models were defined and assessed: the compensatory model and the multiple hurdles model. The models were tested using logistic regression and discriminant analysis. The major findings of the study were: (a) QLE indicators played a significant role in predicting juniors’ and seniors’ persistence. The R² coefficients for the compensatory and multiple hurdles models were 0.32 and 0.37, respectively, whereas the percentages of correct classifications were 85% and 88%. (b) The predictability and classification power were weaker for the compensatory model and stronger for the multiple hurdles framework. (c) The three dominant predictors of juniors’ and seniors’ persistence were student-faculty contact, students’ involvement in their academic program, and the content of that program. The implications of this study are explored.     

Career decision-making self-efficacy and institutional integration of underprepared college students

This investigation applied, as the theoretical base, a model of student persistence and departure (Tinto, 1987) to explore the nature of the relationship between career decision-making self-efficacy and integration. Career decision-making self-efficacy identifies students' perceived confidence (self-efficacy) in their ability to plan and execute vocationally relevant tasks in the educational environment. The sample comprised 418 underprepared students. Data were analyzed using correlation, analysis of variance, and multiple regression. There is an interrelationship between perceived career decision-making self-efficacy and integration (overall, social, and academic) for underprepared college students. The variance in students' integration can be explained by their career decision-making self-efficacy and by their initial goals and commitments. Career decision-making self-efficacy surpassed all other variables in explaining the variance in overall and academic integration. Based on these research results, career decision-making self-efficacy should be considered as a variable in future studies of integration, a longitudinal study should be conducted to determine the direct relationship of career decision-making self-efficacy to persistence and attrition, and if a relationship to persistence is found, then the rationale exists for the design and experimental testing of interventions aimed at increasing career decision-making self-efficacy.     

Predicting the academic achievement of students bridging to engineering: the role of academic background variables and diagnostic testing

Abstract

Although the number of engineering students is increasing, dropout rates remain high. This problem is also present in the Faculty of Engineering Technology (FET) at KU Leuven, Belgium, which resulted in the need for an in-depth analysis of the academic achievement of the bridging students there. This study examines the contribution of a range of predictors, both cognitive and non-cognitive. The examined predictors are: general characteristics, academic background variables and variables tested in a diagnostic test. A multiple linear regression model for the 2015–2016 chohort accounted for an explained variance of 36% of the students’ academic achievement. After combining three cohorts, we managed to explain 43% of the variance in students’ academic achievement. As expected, the academic background variables are the most important predictors. The diagnostic tests are less predictive but their role is important, since they encourage students to participate in associated interventions.     

Methods for assessing higher education research team collaboration: comparing research outputs and participant perceptions across four collaborative research teams

ABSTRACT

This article suggests that situations in which multiple research teams are convened under similar conditions present an opportunity to discover factors that lead to productive collaboration. It argues that social network analysis of research team outputs becomes more valuable when paired with data about research participant perceptions; and that any variables used as indicators of collaboration need to be calibrated using datasets from multiple studies with cross-team comparisons. The article provides an example of the kind of methodology needed to achieve this, describing a study with data from four research teams based at an Australian university campus, reporting their research performance over four years under conditions in which many variables were controlled and with results augmented by a survey of participant perceptions. Findings from the study indicate that there were exceptions to hypothesized associations between participant perceptions of collaboration and specific social network analysis measures over co-authorship data. The article suggests that, given the methodological challenges of studying research teams in the field, multiple datasets combining findings such as those in the present study are a path towards the development of indicators of productive higher education research collaboration.     

Persisting students’ explanations of and emotional responses to academic failure

ABSTRACT

Academic failure is an important and personal event in the lives of university students, and the ways they make sense of experiences of failure matters for their persistence and future success. Academic failure contributes to attrition, yet the extent of this contribution and precipitating factors of failure are not well understood. To illuminate this world-wide problem, we analysed institutional data at a large, comprehensive Australian university and surveyed 186 undergraduate students who had failed at least one unit of study in 2016, but were still enrolled in 2017. Academic failure increased the likelihood of course attrition by 4.2 times. The students who failed and persisted attributed academic failure to a confluence of dispositional, situational, and institutional factors. There was a compounded effect of academic failure on already-vulnerable students resulting in strong negative emotions. Viewing persistence as an interaction between individuals and their sociocultural milieu opens up different avenues for research and considerations for support.     

Factors Related to Differential Achievement Among Boys in Ninth-Grade Algebra

Abstract

This study was an investigation to determine intellectual and non-intellectual variables associated with achievement, persistence, and change of curricular choice among secondary school pupils. The sample of 140 students was categorized into three groups: achievers (N = 86), those who encountered no academic difficulty in their four years of a curriculum; persisters (N = 23), those who encountered difficulty but remained in their initial choice; and changers (N = 31), those who changed their curriculum. The analysis of variance was applied to test significance of the intellectual variables; chi-square for the nonintellectual variables. The level of confidence used for significance was .05.

All intellectual variables tested proved statistically significant. None of the non-intellectual variables tested for changers and persisters proved significant. The conclusion reached was that academic skills, especially reading, arithmetic, and language, related to achievement and persistence in curricular choice.     

Accounting for Student Attrition in Power Calculations: Benchmarks and Guidance

Abstract

Although the research methodology literature includes empirical benchmarks for effect sizes and intraclass correlations to help researchers determine adequate sample sizes through power analysis, it does not include similar benchmarks that would assist proper planning for attrition. To help fill this void, this paper describes how researchers can incorporate student attrition in power analyses and provides empirical benchmarks for the amount of attrition one might expect when conducting a school-based study that follows students over multiple years. The paper incorporates parameters for student attrition in common minimum detectable effect size calculations, presents attrition benchmarks based on student mobility rates in nationally representative longitudinal surveys, and presents benchmarks based on a synthesis of published evaluation studies. The paper includes a demonstration of how researchers can use the attrition benchmarks to take student attrition into account in a power analysis.     

In search of higher persistence rates in distance education online programs

Tinto's [Rev. Educ. Res. 45 (1975) 89; Tinto, V. (1987). Leaving college. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press; Tinto, V. (1993). Leaving college: rethinking the causes and cures of student attrition. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press] student integration model and Bean and Metzner's [Rev. Educ. Res. 55 (1985) 485] student attrition model have been influential in explaining persistence and attrition in higher education programs. However, these models were developed with on-campus programs in mind and, although they are broadly relevant to distance education programs, their ability to explain the persistence of online students is limited. Distance education students have characteristics and needs that differ from traditional learners and the virtual learning environment differs in important ways from an on-campus environment. This article draws chiefly from Tinto's and Bean and Metzner's models and the results of research into the needs of online distance education students in order to synthesize a composite model to better explain persistence and attrition among the largely nontraditional students that enroll in online courses.     

Hispanic Student Success: Factors Influencing the Persistence and Transfer Decisions of Latino Community College Students Enrolled in Developmental Education

This study examined the impact of a set of theoretically-derived predictor variables on the persistence and transfer of Hispanic community college students. Early models of student persistence have been validated primarily among 4-year college students. While the constructs have been well-established, the relationships of those relevant factors remain unexamined among community college transfer students, and specifically, among Hispanic students enrolled in developmental coursework and planning to transfer from a community college to a 4-year institution. Logistic regression analysis was used to test the hypothesized conceptual framework on an existing set of quantitative persistence data drawn from a national sample of Hispanic students.     

Financial Aid and College Persistence: Do Student Loans Help or Hurt?

Using data from two freshmen cohorts at a public research university (N = 3730), this study examines the relationship between loan aid and second-year enrollment persistence. Applying a counterfactual analytical framework that relies on propensity score (PS) weighting and matching to address selection bias associated with treatment status, the study estimates that loan aid exerts a significant negative effect on persistence for students from low-income background (i.e., Pell eligible), and those taking up high amounts of loans in order to meet total cost of attendance, including students who exhausted the available amount of subsidized loan aid. However, no significant incremental effect associated with unsubsidized loan aid, net of subsidized loan aid, could be detected. The estimated effect of loan aid on persistence controls for first-year academic experience and takes into account 26 factors related to loan selection and persistence in order to match students with loan aid to a counterfactual case in covariate adjusted regression. Comparison with results from non-matched-sample analysis suggests selection bias may mask the negative effect of loans detected with matched-sample estimation. Validity of covariates determining the loan selection process and criteria for acceptable balance in the matched data are discussed, and implications for future research are addressed.     

Student dropout in distance education: An application of Tinto's model

The primary purpose of this study was to validate Tinto's theoretical model of student dropout in a distance education programme enrolling adult students. The variables used in adapting the model to the distance education situation were consistent with accepted definitions of the essential elements in Tinto's model: student background characteristics, academic and social integration, goal satisfaction, institutional commitment, and the criterion, student dropout. The study surveyed 356 students enrolled in university‐level courses at The Open Learning Institute (OLI) located in Richmond, British Columbia. Discriminant and path analyses were the basic statistical procedures used to assess the predictive validity of the model and determine the pattern of association among model variables. Previous validation studies of Tinto's model suggested social integration factors would have little effect on dropout behaviour among non‐traditional student groups. However, in the present study, direct telephone contact between faculty and students significantly influenced student commitment and persistence. Overall, the Tinto model appears to be a useful framework within which to investigate the process of student attrition‐persistence in a distance education institution.     

Evaluating Experimental and Control Programs for Attrition/Persistence

Abstract

This study assessed the effectiveness, in terms of attrition/persistence, of an experimental program for disadvantaged freshmen (A’ = 104) as contrasted with a control program (N = 104). Multifactor analyses of variance considered the effects of programs, special instruction, financial aid, ACT, sex, race, and GPA. In terms of freshman attrition/persistence, there were no viable significant differences between the experimental and control programs; between special and regular instruction; between financial aid and no financial aid; between special instruction with financial aid and regular instruction with no financial aid; between lower and higher ACT scores; between males and females; or between blacks and whites. Grades (as significant main effects and in significant interactions) differentiated freshman attrition/ persistence consistently.     

Factors affecting persistence of Deaf college students

A study of attrition after the first year of college was conducted with the 1984 entry class of the National Technical Institute for the Deaf. A path-analytic model of 9 factors affecting student persistence was tested using LISREL (N = 233). The results indicate that social integration is an important factor in college persistence. Grade point average is not a critical factor in first year attrition. While provocative, the reasons behind these findings may be specific to NTID. For example, many students come to NTID specifically for its social community. It is concluded, therefore, that while these results were somewhat different from those of studies with hearing students, they support the proposition that studies of college attrition cannot be generalized across institutions.     

取代芳烃结构与生物活性关系研究

根据非氢原子类型分类、基于非氢原子相对电负性和非氢原子间距离等进行计算得到的分子电性距离矢量(MEDV)为描述子,对取代芳烃的结构进行表征.用多元线性回归(MLR)方法,研究并建立了取代芳烃定量结构-急性毒性(QSAR)关系的6变量模型,其复相关系数为0.970;采用SPSS统计处理软件对变量进行逐步回归(SMR)筛选后,建立了5变量的QSAR模型,其复相关系数为0.964.上述模型对26个取代芳烃的急性毒性的预测值与实验值能较好吻合.留一法进行交互检验,结果表明所建模型具有良好的稳定性和预测能力.     

The Effect of Loans on the Persistence and Attainment of Community College Students

This study informs public policies regarding the use of subsidized loans as financial aid for community college students. Using logistic regression, it analyzes the National Center for Education Statistics’ Beginning Postsecondary Students (BPS 90/94) data to predict persistence to the second year of college and associate’s degree attainment over five years. During the period under study, loans did not contribute to higher persistence and attainment rates. Loans are observed to have a negative effect on persistence and no effect on degree attainment. Estimates of the interaction effects of borrowing and income status are insignificant but demonstrate the need for further testing. The findings are attributed to a combination of the high uncertainty of degree completion among community college students and the negative affective component of indebtedness. Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the American Education Finance Association Annual Meeting (Austin, Texas, March, 2000) and at the AIR Forum (Cincinnati, Ohio, May 2000). It has also appeared as a working paper of the Institute for Higher Education Law and Governance at the University of Houston, Texas (IHELG Monograph 01–07).This paper is based upon work supported by the Association for Institutional Research, the National Center for Education Statistics and the National Science Foundation under Association for Institutional Research Grant No. 99-128-0.     

Predicting Academic Success in Master’s Degree Programs in Education

Abstract

This study tested relationships between selected predictors and success in the Master's degree program in education at The Ohio State University for 171 students who received the degree during the 1962-63 academic year. The basic statistical tool used was multiple regression analysis in which the dependent variables were the graduate grade-point average (GPA) and adviser ratings.

The three best single predictors (all significant at the one per cent level) were found to be undergraduate GPA, the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal Test, and The Ohio State University Psychological Test. A multiple predictor involving these three variables yielded a correlation coefficient of .389 with the graduate GPA. The difference in predictor correlation between undergraduate GPA for all four years and that for only the last two years was very slight.     

Gender issues related to graduate student attrition in two science departments

This study explored the gender issues that contributed to the differential attrition rate of men and women graduate students in two science departments (biology and chemistry) at a large research university. Departmental records were used to compute the student attrition rate while surveys from 170 students, and interviews with 32 of them, were used to explore students' perspectives on the reasons affecting the attrition of men and women graduate students in each department. Analysis of the data indicated a significantly larger student attrition rate in chemistry than in biology. In each department the attrition rate for women was also significantly larger than the attrition rate for men. The study uncovered different gender issues, in each department, related to the significantly larger attrition rate for women students.     

Early Integration and Other Outcomes for Community College Transfer Students

The purpose of this study was to explore academic and social integration and other outcomes for community college transfer students. The study used Tinto’s (Leaving college: Rethinking the causes and cures of student attrition, 1993) Longitudinal Model of Institutional Departure and Deil-Amen’s (J Higher Educ, 82:54–91, 2011) concept of “socio-academic integrative moments” to inform the selection and organization of potential predictors. We developed regression models for relationships between demographic and background variables of interest and perceived academic and social integration following the first six weeks at the receiving university. We also included these perceived integration scores in regression models for six outcomes (first and second semester grade point average, first and second semester earned hours ratios, and second and third semester persistence). Academic and previous college background explained the greatest amount of variance in predicting early integration and academic outcomes.     

Impact of Early Alert on Community College Student Persistence in Virginia

ABSTRACT

Early alert systems have promised to be an integral component of a student success solution. The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the relationship between the use of the early alert system and persistence for students taking developmental education courses and students taking college-level courses in the Virginia Community College System. A quasi-experimental, nonrandomized research design with matched-control groups was used to evaluate impact on student persistence. Data analysis was conducted using multiple binary logistic regressions. The results indicated the early alert system had a substantial and positive impact on developmental mathematics students, with minimal to no impact on developmental English and college-level students. Students enrolled in developmental English courses, experienced a positive, but much more modest impact. Finally, students in college-level courses experienced a very mild impact, in some instances positive and others negative.