Growth-to-standard models evaluate student growth against the growth needed to reach a future standard or target of interest, such as proficiency. A common growth-to-standard model involves comparing the popular Student Growth Percentile (SGP) to Adequate Growth Percentiles (AGPs). AGPs follow from an involved process based on fitting a series of…

This study focused on the question of how to enhance a mastery-goal orientation in the classroom. We started from the perspective of the achievement goal theory, which assumes that the goals that students have (personal goals) relate to the goals that are set in the classroom (classroom goal structures). In classrooms where teachers focus on…

We conducted a study of predictive analytics (PA) applied to state data on post-school outcomes (PSO) of exited high-school students with disabilities (SWD). Data analyses with machine learning Random Forest algorithm and multilevel Bayesian ordered logistic regression produced two key findings. One, Random Forest models were accurate in…

This article employs quantitative critical race theory (QuantCrit), set against a historical context backdrop, to understand key aspects of Black religious engagement and post-college educational pathways. The variables selected for this study illuminate post-graduation outcomes for Black students valued by the Freedmen's Bureau and other…

This study uses data from the National Longitudinal Transitional Study 2 to examine relationships between expectations about college education and enrollment patterns among students on the autism spectrum. Results reveal that although more than half of the students reported that they were likely to attend college, among their Individualized…

The present study illustrates the utility of applying multilevel mixture models in educational research, using data on the homework behavior of 1,812 Swiss eighth-grade students in French as a second language. A previous person-centered study identified 5 homework learning types characterized by different patterns of high or low homework time and…

Assessing course goals is often challenging; assessing an abstract goal, like empathy, can be especially so. For many instructors, empathy is central to sociological thinking. As such, fostering empathy in students is a common course goal. In this article, we report the initial findings of a semester-long assessment of empathy change in…

Ten years ago, after 20 years as a university professor, I was asked to direct the teaching and learning support center at my university. I quickly realized I had almost no knowledge of the published scholarship on this subject. From my reading of this literature, I found the research on the predictors of student learning particularly informative.…

Although studies have investigated educational attainment of groups of students professing low and high educational self-expectations, groups of noncommittal students, rather than being studied as a discrete group, have been treated as missing and ignored. This study investigated the differences between students of noncommittal, low, and high…

Reading for understanding is a challenging task for many upper elementary struggling readers, and their attitudes toward such challenges can make a difference in their subsequent engagement and reading achievement. Mindset and achievement goals provide a useful explanatory framework for understanding struggling readers' engagement and reading…

Current university juniors and seniors have plans and expectations for after they graduate. In an effort to better understand these plans and expectations, the authors assessed a sample of 334 university students enrolled in business classes. The study examined the impact of three categories of independent variables--family influences, demographic…

The number of studies exploring the perceptions of college students towards the police has been small, with only two that include diverse urban college students as part of the samples. At two colleges in a large northeastern US city 1,103 students completed surveys that included items inquiring about personal information and their interactions…

The psychological construct of hope, characterized by goal-directed thinking rooted in personal agency and the ability to develop pathways to achieve goals, has long been demonstrated to predict academic success. A sample of 994 undergraduates participated in this study to better understand the role of hope and on-campus social support in…

Students are most likely to leave science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors during their first year of college. We developed an analytic approach using random forests to identify at-risk students. This method is deployable midway through the first semester and accounts for academic preparation, early engagement in university…

Since the introduction of the post-1992 university, various, and ongoing, higher education (HE) policy reforms have fuelled academic, political, media and anecdotal discussions of the trajectories of UK university students. An outcome of this has been the dualistic classification of students as being from either 'traditional' or 'non-traditional'…