This study documents visits to a follow-up counselor at Gavilan College (California) beginning in the fall of 2000. Students on dismissal are required to visit a counselor prior to enrolling to assist them in designing an achievable academic plan. The goals of the follow-up counseling include: (1) helping students raise their grade point averages…

This May 2004 issue of "Outlook," a monthly publication published by the Council for American Private Education (CAPE), describes the findings of the 2000 High School Transcript Study (HSTS), which examined the transcripts of 19,747 public school students and 1,184 private school students in order to provide a comprehensive look at the high school…

This study investigated the cognitive and affective student learning outcomes of 36 semesters (equivalent to 18 years) using the mastery learning approach in high school distributive education classes (n=7,179 students). Student achievement in the cognitive area is reported by increasing grade point averages, and test scores are presented to show…

This study examined the relationship of first-time-in-college (FTIC) freshmen with race, high school grade point average (GPA), and Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) and ACT Assessment scores. Data were obtained for 5 years of fall semester FTIC cohorts (n=8,573). The results show: (1) SAT and ACT scores were unrelated to re-enrollment/graduation…

Afterschool programs enable inner city public schools to plan, implement, or expand projects that benefit the educational, health, social services, cultural, and recreational needs of the community. This study investigated the impact of afterschool programs on various non-cognitive and cognitive measures (e.g., attendance, suspensions, and grade…

This study evaluated the effectiveness of a variety of academic intervention programs designed to improve the success of "at risk" students at one university. Most programs were designed to either help students in a particular course (such as calculus or chemistry) or in a particular major. The performance benchmark used to assess…

This research paper analyzes the distance learning program at Piedmont Virginia Community College (PVCC) for the 2000-2001 school year, during which PVCC offered 34 distance learning classes. Findings indicate that: (1) 25 of the classes were Web-based (asynchronous) and 9 were compressed video (synchronous); (2) nearly 3% of all classes at PVCC…

This paper proposes linkages between the first year and the senior year of college, looking at the results of a workplace readiness assessment. The study was based on the assumption that the campus environment does not prepare students to handle life beyond college. Students volunteers completed a lengthy paper survey prior to viewing a video…

The causal structure between academic achievement and cognitive, psychological, and facilitative variables during the freshman year in college was studied. Data from 455 freshmen were used in the analysis. Participants completed measures of student goals, facilitative skills, and learning and thinking styles. Pre-college and freshman achievement…

This study involves developing a motivational model of college achievement. The predictor variables, which were procrastination tendency, self-efficacy, self-regulation, intrinsic value, outcome value, cognitive strategy, test anxiety, students grade goals, parent grade goals, and grade point average, as well as the criterion variable exam…

This study assessed the predictive and incremental validity of a prototype version of the forthcoming SAT® writing section that was administered to a sample of incoming students at 13 colleges and universities. For these participants, SAT scores, high school GPA, and first-year grades also were obtained. Using these data, analyses were conducted…

Although a number of large-scale studies have demonstrated an increase in predictive validity when SAT® scores are added to high school grades, this increment is often described in terms of a seemingly very small increase in explained variance. This may have led to the erroneous belief among test critics and others that students with low SAT…

The SAT I: Reasoning Test actually predicts how well females will do in college better than it predicts for males. Results from validity studies that have been conducted with hundreds of colleges and universities and examined by ETS and external researchers consistently confirm that the SAT correlation with both freshman GPA and individual course…

An investigation of 148 community college students regarding cheating behaviors on a final multiple-choice test did not lend support for the association of personality constructs with cheating behaviors except for the anxiety construct. Self-reported grade point average and test score were negatively related to cheating. (Author/PN)

This study of test bias used Black, Oriental, Chicano, and White students to answer two questions: (1) Is grade point average prediction for Chicanos and Orientals similar to prediction for Blacks and Whites? and (2) Does major field mediate ethnic differences in test performance? (Author/BW)