Community colleges benefit from a diverse population with various reasons for attending. For example, 23% of Latina/o students that earned a PhD between 1990 and 2000 began their education in a community college (Rivas, Pérez, Alvarez, & Solórzano, 2007). However, there are a number who often do not persist toward their goals. To begin with,…

Retention is a complex issue of great importance to community colleges. Several retention models have been developed to help explain this phenomenon. However, these models typically have used four-year college and university environments to build their foundations. Several researchers have attempted to identify predictor variables using…

Close to half of all community college students leave before obtaining their stated goals. In order to determine what student characteristics increase community college student retention, with a heightened interest on the predictive nature of taking a student success course, a post-facto quasi-experimental study was conducted to determine whether…

The first year of university has been identified as an area of interest and concern for several decades because, for many students, their first year at university is also their last. The researchers developed a program based on a Sports Education model to influence the engagement and retention of first year students. The program sought to build…

The Reconstructed Cohort Method is often used to examine the status of national education. However, this method does not account for individual details and we know little about the status of school enrolments by tracking individual students from entrance until dropout or graduation. This study employs the True Cohort Method to analyse data for…

American schools are failing to meet the expectations of a wide swath of students, many of them in low-income and rural communities. What's needed is a new pact putting their expectations at its center. The article is based on the authors' book: "Leaving to Learn: How Out-of-School Learning Increases Student Engagement and Reduces…

Teaching, learning, and retention processes have evolved historically to include multifaceted techniques beyond the traditional lecture. This article presents related results of a study using a healthcare learning community in a southwest Georgia university. The value of novel techniques and tools in promoting student learning and retention…

Objective: This case study examined the effects of an early intervention program designed to respond to residential college students demonstrating risk for suicide. Participants: Participants were 108 undergraduates at a large northeastern public university referred to an early intervention program subsequent to presenting with risk factors for…

This paper reports on an interpretivist research study that sought to articulate the strategies being adopted by selected universities to recruit, teach and retain students from low socio-economic status (SES) backgrounds. The literature is clear that these students face more barriers and fewer encouragers than their peers to engage with higher…

This issue of "Assessment Update" presents the following articles: (1) Effective Leadership Assessment: A 360-Degree Process; (2) Editor's Notes: Accentuating the Positive in Our Work; (3) The Broadcast Education Association's Model Rubrics Project: Building Consensus One Rubric at a Time; (4) Building a Better…

In this chapter findings from a nationally representative longitudinal study offer insights into how the experiences students have during their first college year affect their intention to be retained at their initial college for the second year.

The qualitative study explored the opinions and perceptions of freshman, sophomores, and freshman students that dropped out of the university to understand the obstacles and enablers that millennial freshmen faced transitioning into a college environment. To understand these factors the study posed the question, how do the participants (i.e.,…

Institutions play an important role in motivating students by understanding intrinsic and extrinsic factors that motivate students to remain in college. Postsecondary institutions should provide a range of programs to help these students face their challenges and weaknesses. Colleges and universities should escalate the process of creating bridge…

This study presents the findings of the second phase of a project examining the attrition and progression of two cohorts of students in a tertiary bridging program at a regional university in Australia. The first phase of the study (Whannell, 2013) based on data collected up to week 5 of the bridging program identified age, academic achievement on…

There seems to be limited work addressing how depression is linked to elements of student functioning in the school setting other than academic achievement. This study investigated possible correlates of depressive symptoms with school engagement and disengagement. We examined four specific school variables (school motivation, intentions to quit,…