The purpose of this study was to determine the impact of leadership styles on teacher retention, specifically in priority schools. The literature review revealed some existing research on the correlation of principal styles and teacher job satisfaction, student achievement, and teacher burnout, however; minimal research was found to support the…

Demand is high for engineering students and educators must identify factors affecting persistence and graduation of engineers. Retention and graduation rates remain problematic for many institutions. Higher education research focuses on these two issues as many students head to engineering programs with a wide range of attributes, characteristics,…

Massive open online course (MOOC) participants face diverse barriers that prevent them from feeling satisfied with participating in online courses. This study identified those barriers and their predictors. Using pre- and post-questionnaires, MOOC participants reported several characteristics and their barriers to satisfaction during the course.…

College student persistence and graduation rates have been a major topic of investigation for higher education throughout the United States of America, both in 2 yr. and 4 yr. institution. Although, college education is highly valued in today's society, college persistence and graduation rates are still relatively low. Only 60% of students who…

Teacher self-efficacy affects student achievement, job satisfaction, and teacher retention. Although the benefits of social support have been extensively studied in medicine and psychology, limited research has been completed in education to evaluate the ways in which social support influences teacher self-efficacy. The purpose of this…

Pathways to biomedical careers are not being pursued with equal vigilance among all students. Emerging research shows that historically underrepresented (HU) students who maintain a strong science identity are more likely to persist. However, the influence of social support on persistence is less studied, especially as it relates to science…

Purpose: Over the past years "leadership for learning" (LFL) has become popular among educational scholars. LFL refers to the idea that effective leaders demonstrate a contextually contingent mix of instructional, transformational, and shared leadership practices that may have differential effects at various organizational levels. These…

Informed by the theoretical lens of opportunity hoarding, this study considers whether STEM postsecondary fields stand apart via the disproportionate exclusion of Black and Latina/o youth. Utilizing national data from the Beginning Postsecondary Study (BPS), the authors investigate whether Black and Latina/o youth who begin college as STEM majors…

Each year, roughly 30% of first-year students at US baccalaureate institutions do not return for their second year and billions of dollars are spent educating these students. Yet, little quantitative research has analyzed the causes and possible remedies for student attrition. What's more, most of the previous attempts to model attrition at…

This study conducted a development and validation of a vignette-based grit scale (Grit-V). The purpose was to determine if the use of vignettes provided more validity evidence than short simple-sentence item endorsements. The data were gathered from a sample population of undergraduate students from The University of Alabama. Focus group data were…

Faculty diversity has benefits for all students; however, increasing faculty diversity may be particularly helpful in reducing academic disparities for students of color. This study examines the impact of having a professor of the same race/ethnicity on student performance. A longitudinal model was tested to examine how campus racial/ethnic…

Online doctoral students may be at especially high risk for not completing their program. The purpose of this paper is to synthesize and critically analyze the body of research examining factors associated with persistence among online doctoral students, a relatively understudied population. Consistent with the notion that integration and…

This study is an exploration of the probability of modeling higher education to optimize student retention for a desired academic outcome. As college students can be viewed as "consumers" of education institutions, this paper examines the applicability of business concepts of customer loyalty and retention and reviews the business…

The present study examined the mediating role of depression symptoms in the relation of college stress and minority status stress to cumulative grade point average (GPA) and persistence intentions among Hispanic women (n = 426) enrolled in a 4-year major research public institution. Results of path analyses indicated a strong model-data fit for…

Improvement in undergraduate retention and progression is a priority at many US postsecondary institutions. A number of institutions address this issue by identifying gateway courses (foundational courses in which a large number of students fail or withdraw) and concentrating on "fixing" them. This paper argues that may not be the best…