This study examined how students perceive the impact of a mandatory first-year seminar course on their success and persistence at a 2-year institution. Specifically, the study focused on the influence of the course curriculum and objectives to promote success and perseverance and how the campus community supports student success and persistence.…

The historic underrepresentation of women, certain racial and ethnic minorities, and members of other marginalized groups in careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) reflects a disproportionate exit of individuals from these academic and career paths due to both environmental and personal factors. To transition…

This paper compares an innovative approach to teaching a required introductory C programming course to a traditional C programming course for electrical engineering (EE) students. The novel course utilizes hardware-based projects to motivate students to master language syntax and implement key programming concepts and best practices. In a mixed…

This study aimed to evaluate the Public Relations and Publicity associate degree distance program available to students through Open Education Faculty at Anadolu University, Turkey. The study used Erden's (1998) component-oriented model and a convergent mixed methods design employing an online questionnaire form. The study population included…

Retention of students in university or other postsecondary education programs is a common problem for many institutions, with retention from first year to second year of study being particularly problematic in Canada and the United States. A number of factors are known to affect retention, and a number of measures have been identified which can…

This Innovative Practice Category Work In Progress paper presents an application of machine learning and data mining to student performance data in an undergraduate electrical engineering program. We are developing an analytical approach to enhance retention in the program especially among underrepresented groups. Our approach will provide…