A study of three hundred undergraduates enrolled in a general education course at a large midwestern state university revealed, as expected, a strong negative correlation between absences and final grades. Although the complex equation for academic success involves many more variables than attendance alone, some of which are also considered in…

General education classrooms provide a common milieu for understanding and appropriating results of classroom research projects, which are typically viewed as having little application outside their original contexts. Here, results of an investigation into the "sophomore slump," where grades and class attendance rates typically suffer, are…

These researchers analyzed the perceptions of parents of students determined to be at-risk about their involvement with their children. Parents (n = 229), predominantly Hispanic, were surveyed from elementary schools, middle schools, and high schools in a district in South Texas near the Texas-Mexico border. Quantitative data obtained from the…

The period since 1991 has seen a general improvement both in terms of household welfare and schooling participation in Ghana. This monograph explores the patterns among descriptive indicators and uses regression analysis to examine possible causal relationships with special reference to the role of education in determining welfare and its…

This booklet is addressed to beginning high school students, discussing what many researchers consider the most important year of high school, perhaps the most important year of school so far. Freshman year will set the stage for whether a student graduates and whether he or she will be ready for college. Citing years of study, the Consortium on…

This article tests a relationship between class attendance and final grades in several political science courses that I taught at the University of Georgia, University of Vermont, and University of Central Arkansas between the Fall 2000 and Spring 2006 semesters. The study employs ordinary least square estimators to test the foregoing hypothesis.…

Background: Truancy is a serious concern that affects most school districts in the United States; however, we do not have accurate estimates of the prevalence of truancy due to inconsistent tracking and reporting practices of schools. As a result, our best current estimates of the national state of truancy may be from self-reported data. In this…

This study explored the relationship between classroom instructional processes and the average number of student absences in first and third grades. The data were collected in a total of 166 classrooms as part of the Follow Through Planned Variation Program. The Classroom Observation Instrument, developed by Stanford Research Institute, was used…

This research examined the level of equity of the public school funding system in Texas that in September of 2004 was held to be unconstitutional by a state district judge. The study also introduces a mechanism, referred to as the Revenue-to-Population Index or RTP Index, which compares funding equity within the unconstitutional system among 1031…

We tested five course designs that varied in the structure of daily and weekly active-learning exercises in an attempt to lower the traditionally high failure rate in a gateway course for biology majors. Students were given daily multiple-choice questions and answered with electronic response devices (clickers) or cards. Card responses were…

Truancy is a considerable problem among adolescents. Considering the historical emphasis on studying truancy in urban regions, a concerted effort is needed to extend this research into rural areas to examine cultural generalizability of findings. The purpose of this study was to assess variables associated with truancy in a rural sample (N = 367)…

Four indices of achievement relative to a measure of general intelligence were constructed for a sample of 178 adolescents. Measures of achievement were taken from tests in reading comprehension and mathematics, from an English essay, and from the results of public examinations at 16+. (Author)

A growing body of literature supports the relationship between students' self-efficacy beliefs for academic tasks and milestones and their academic performance. Not surprisingly, some researchers have investigated the role that academic self-efficacy beliefs play in predicting college success. Two incremental validity studies were conducted to…

Charter schools are publicly funded but operate outside the regulatory framework and collective bargaining agreements characteristic of traditional public schools. In return for this freedom, charter schools are subject to heightened accountability. This paper estimates the impact of charter school attendance on student achievement using data from…

Little research has examined the links between role status changes during the transition to adulthood and sexual behaviors that place African Americans at risk for sexually transmitted infections. Moreover, the mediating processes that explain these links, or protective factors that may buffer young adults from risky sexual behavior, are unknown.…