Hispanic college students are more at risk of poor academic performance and dropping out than any other racial group. The Hispanic college population continues to grow, yet rates of retention and achievement for this group continue to decline. Previous research on Hispanic college students has examined factors that contribute to underachievement…

It has been suggested that tacit knowledge may be a good predictor of performance in college. The purpose of this study was to investigate the extent to which a situational judgment test developed to measure tacit knowledge correlates with predictors and indicators of college performance. This situational judgment test includes eight situations…

The purpose of the studies reported here was to test the hypothesis that college students from cultures that emphasize strong family ties experience familial tethering or a pull to remain connected to home, which then has negative consequences on the student's ability to connect to and succeed at the university. In Study 1, it was found that…

We examined the impact of the number of comorbid difficulties, social support, and community support on life satisfaction and academic achievement among 120 university students or recent graduates with self-reported reading difficulties. Participants completed a questionnaire assessing perceived social support, perceived community support, the…

Despite decades of research indicating classrooms shape student engagement, learning, and development, there is a dearth of empirically grounded research focusing specifically on observed classroom engagement as a predictor of student outcomes in community colleges. This article describes the development of a qualitatively grounded, quantitative…

Prior scholastic journalism research did not adequately address the possibility that journalism students perform better academically because of their backgrounds and inherent abilities. Using Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 data, this study shows that high school journalism attracts better students. Although for-credit and extracurricular…

The purpose of this study was to determine if selected factors influenced the ability of students in school-based agricultural education programs to generate a correct hypothesis when troubleshooting small gasoline engines. Variables of interest included students' cognitive style, age, GPA, and content knowledge in small gasoline engines. Kirton's…

This article examines a technique for engaging critical thinking on multiple-choice exams. University students were encouraged to "challenge" the validity of any exam question they believed to be unfair (e.g., more than one equally correct answer, ambiguous wording, etc.). The number of valid challenges a student wrote was a better…

We surveyed 237 first-time college students to examine the extent to which social-cognitive factors--self-efficacy, perceptions of mentorship, high school GPA, ACT scores, first-semester college GPA, and demographic characteristics-- influence freshmen's intent to persist. Standard multiple regression and MANOVA were conducted to determine the…

Many academic disciplines have examined the role that variation in Jungian personality types plays in the academic performance of college students. Different personality types tend to have different learning styles, which in turn influence student performance in a variety of college courses. To measure the impact of learning styles on student…

A study was conducted at a community college in northeast Alabama to determine how the format of developmental English courses impacted student withdrawal rates and final grades. The two course formats examined were online/hybrid and face-to-face courses. Data were obtained from a 4-semester time frame: fall 2012, spring 2013, summer 2013, and…

In this paper we explore and discuss an important research question in higher education--is there a trade-off relationship between in-class and out-of-class efforts for students? We used an empirical model to test the trade-off hypothesis between these two efforts. We identified a trade-off between in-class and out-of-class efforts, especially for…

The purpose of this quantitative study is to replicate and advance Kiley & Gable's (2013) work in examining the empirical relationship between SSAT scores and academic outcomes. Data is used relating to students accepted and enrolled in 9th grade at St. Andrew's School--a private elite boarding school--in the Fall of 2010 and Fall of 2011.…

Few scholars have comprehensively examined benefits of undergraduate research (UGR) participation for students at an institution campus-wide. In this study we examined benefits of UGR participation at a Hispanic-majority institution using National Survey of Student Engagement data. Generalized estimating equations were used to examine the…

Prior literature on educational attainment indicates that there is both a female advantage and an LGB bonus: women are more likely to have earned bachelor's degrees than men, and lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) persons are more likely to have earned a bachelor's degree than heterosexuals. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of…