Maintaining and cultivating student engagement is critical for learning. Understanding factors affecting student engagement can help in designing better courses and improving student retention. The large number of participants in massive open online courses (MOOCs) and data collected from their interactions on the MOOC open up avenues for studying…

Predictive studies have been widely undertaken in the field of education to provide strategic information about the extensive set of processes related to teaching and learning, as well as about what variables predict certain educational outcomes, such as academic achievement or dropout. As in any other area, there is a set of standard techniques…

Online education continues to become an increasingly prominent part of higher education, but many students struggle in distance courses. For this reason, there has been considerable interest in predicting which students will succeed in online courses and which will receive poor grades or drop out prior to completion. Effective intervention depends…

Curricular changes that promote undergraduate persistence in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines are likely associated with particular student psychological outcomes, and tools are needed that effectively assess these developments. Here, we describe the theoretical basis, psychometric properties, and predictive…

Students routinely ignore negative feedback regarding their performances early in college science courses. In this study we analyzed the extent to which two standard forms of feedback, midterm and first-exam grades, correlated with final grades in several biology courses. The courses ranged from an introductory course for nonmajors to upper…

Purpose: Increased core (brain or body) temperature that accompanies exercise has been posited to play an influential role in affective responses to exercise. However, findings in support of this hypothesis have been equivocal, and most of the performed studies have been done in relation to anxiety. The aim of the present study was to investigate…

Ten years of College Student Inventory (CSI) data from one Midwestern public land-grant university were used to study the role of motivational factors in predicting academic success and college student retention. Academic success was defined as cumulative grade point average (GPA), cumulative course load capacity (i.e., the number of credits…

Although college-aged women are at high risk for human papillomavirus (HPV) infection, many college women remain unvaccinated against HPV. Testing health behavior theory can assist sexuality educators in identifying behavioral antecedents to promote behavior change within an intervention. The purpose of this pilot study was to utilize social…

The merits of double exponential smoothing are discussed relative to other types of pattern-based enrollment forecasting methods. The difficulties associated with selecting an appropriate weight factor are discussed, and their potential effects on prediction results are illustrated. Two methods for objectively selecting the "best" weight…

THE PREDICTIVE SKILLS OF CLINICAL JUDGES WERE TESTED TO DETERMINE (1) IF VALIDATION EXPERIENCE AFFECTS THE ACCURACY OF CLINICAL JUDGMENT AND (2) IF THE CLINICAL JUDGE KNOWS WHEN TO DEVIATE FROM STATISTICAL PREDICTIONS. EIGHTEEN COUNSELORS WHO HAD PARTICIPATED IN A PREVIOUS INVESTIGATION OF PREDICTIVE SKILLS TOOK PART IN THE EXPERIMENT. ALL…

This study sought to ascertain the effect on student behavior of two approaches to visual information transmission. These approaches involved varying the sequence of messages transmitted through the visual communications channel and varying the redundancy of messages presented through this channel. The investigation was conducted as a four-group…

The statistical and institutional influences on the prediction of first-year college grades were examined using data from College Board validity studies and the College Handbook. The criterion was the size of the multiple correlation between academic predictors and first-year college grades. (Author/MLW)

Examined the consistency of student identification with subcultures in the Clark-Trow typology and determined that identification with a subculture during the undergraduate years is associated with choices 10 years later. (Author)

The feasibility and effectiveness of a Bayesian method for estimating regressions in m groups is studied by application of the method to data from the Basic Research Service of The American College Testing Program. Evidence supports the belief that in many testing applications the collateral information obtained from each subset of m-1 colleges…

Data from the National Research Council's Doctorate Records File extract prepared for UCLA indicated that source of support was the most important variable in predicting time to doctorate. Following source of support were postdoctoral plans, number of dependents, sex, and field of study. (Author/MLW)