Contemporary technology, along with the tangible/virtual duality of present-day learner consciousness, are, in the authors' opinion, necessitating and enabling a fundamental educational transformation. A central feature of this development will be 'letting the learners lead', including (from secondary onwards) their identification of the content…

Background/Context: Access to rigorous courses in high school is essential for college success (ACT, 2005), but low-income students and students of color take fewer demanding courses than their white and Asian counterparts (Cowan Pitre, 2014; Theokas & Saaris, 2013). The issue of inequitable access to more advanced courses requires a deeper…

Student participation and performance in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) have been an education concern in the United States for years. In 2013, Texas lawmakers passed House Bill 5 (HB5) to support increases in STEM awareness, particularly among ethnic minority and female students. To date, no studies have been conducted on the…

Academic choice and exploration are essential aspects of undergraduate education in the United States, allowing students to select courses with minimal restrictions. However, students often face challenges in navigating the complex academic landscape, hindered by limited information, insufficient guidance, and an overwhelming number of choices.…

The author of this article summarizes which, when, where, and how students take introductory economics. Among students who began college in 2012, 74 percent never took economics, up from 62 percent in 2004. Fifteen percent of beginning college students in 2012 took "some economics," and 12 percent were "one-and-done" students.…

Gendered field-of-study choice is a lively topic of discussion. The explanation usually given for the fact that women are still an exception in typically 'male' fields--particularly STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics)--employs domain-specific stereotypes regarding men's and women's 'natural' abilities in different fields. The…

To examine the combined effects of maths anxiety (MA), maths self-efficacy (MSE), and maths interest (MI) on STEM career choice, we analysed self-report data from 7908 Twins Early Development Study participants, collected at ages 16 (MSE, MI), 18 (MA) and 21 (STEM career choice). When analysed in the same model, MSE did not independently predict…

Course selection is an important issue for university students. This study investigates the relationship between course selection and overall academic performance among university students. Using anonymous transcripts from 1681 undergraduates across ten majors, we examined the association between elective course load or choices and academic…

In this paper, we present an extended evaluation of a course recommender system designed to support students who struggle in the first semesters of their studies and are at risk of dropping out. The system, which was developed in earlier work using a student-centered design, is based on the explainable k-nearest neighbor algorithm and recommends a…

Context: Research has demonstrated the importance of teacher quality for student achievement above all other school-based factors (Aaronson et al., 2007; Goldhaber, 2002; Rivkin et al., 2005; Rockoff, 2004). Yet while states and districts have allocated significant resources toward professional learning (PL) aimed at improving instruction (Jacob…

University graduates have invested significant time, money, and effort into completing their studies, with many discovering that their chosen discipline is not what they were expecting, nor the right fit for their individual values or goals. Transition between disciplines is particularly common in the helping professions, but little is known about…

Recent research on curricular analytics suggests that the structure of a college major may impact major persistence and degree completion. Contributing to this line of research, we propose and test a new measure of the "lived curriculum" that captures the extent to which cohorts within a major take the same exact course-taking path as…

How does postsecondary human capital investment respond to changes in labor market skill demand? We quantify the magnitude and nature of this response in the U.S. 4-year sector. To do so, we develop a new measure of institution-major-specific labor demand, and corresponding shift-share instrument, that combines job ads with alumni locations. We…

The expansion of Advanced Placement (AP) programs to include students from underrepresented racial and ethnic minorities and those from less advantaged socioeconomic backgrounds has made it crucial to assess how effective AP courses and exams are for these groups. As AP programs become more popular, more high school students--especially freshmen…

College students use both formal and informal processes when making decisions related to course selection. They often get course-registration advice through formal on-campus "institutional" resources and off-campus "non-institutional" resources. In April 2016, Michael Dunlop and a student in his Data and Decisions Analysis…