The purpose of this article is to provide higher education researchers with an illustrative example of meta-analysis utilizing hierarchical linear modeling (HLM). This article demonstrates the step-by-step process of meta-analysis using a recently-published study examining the effects of curricular and co-curricular diversity activities on racial…

A number of studies over decades have examined determinants of educational expectations. However, even among the subset of quantitative studies, there is considerable variation in the methods used to operationally define and analyze expectations. Using a systematic literature review and several regression methods to analyze Latino students'…

This study addresses several methodological problems that have confronted prior research on the effect of class size on student achievement. Unlike previous studies, this analysis accounts for the hierarchical data structure of student achievement, where grades are nested within classes and students, and considers a wide range of class sizes…

This methodological note illustrates how a commonly used calculation of the Delta-p statistic is inappropriate for categorical independent variables, and this note provides users of logistic regression with a revised calculation of the Delta-p statistic that is more meaningful when studying the differences in the predicted probability of an…

Pascarella (J Coll Stud Dev 47:508-520, 2006) has called for an increase in use of longitudinal data with pretest-posttest design when studying effects on college students. However, such designs that use multiple measures to document change are vulnerable to an important threat to internal validity, regression to the mean. Herein, we discuss a…

In most multi-campus studies of college impact that have been conducted over the past four decades, investigators have relied on ordinary least squares (OLS) regression as the analytic method of choice. Recently, however, some investigators have advocated the use of Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM), a method specifically designed for analyses…

Faculty have long incorporated students into interdisciplinary research projects to meet increasingly common demands for collaborative research by federal funding agencies. Despite the critical role of experiential learning in building student research skills and capacity, few have explored social interaction mechanisms used to facilitate student…

Most institutions of higher education allow students to drop or add courses in the first 2-3 weeks of each term (D&A). Arguing that course cancellation is not merely an administrative issue involving enrollment trends but represents complex decision making processes taken by students, this study investigated antecedents and correlates of course…

The increasing importance of constructivism in higher education has brought about a shift in pedagogy from a focus on the teacher to a focus on the student. This has important implications for teaching and assessment. A student-centred pedagogy implies a different role for the teacher. What exactly does student-centred teaching require from…

This study empirically explores the comparability of traditional survey-based retention research methodology with an alternative approach that relies on data commonly available in institutional student databases. Drawing on Tinto's [Tinto, V. (1993). "Leaving College: Rethinking the Causes and Cures of Student Attrition" (2nd Ed.), The University…

Most research in the area of higher education is plagued by the problem of endogeneity or self-selection bias. Unlike ordinary least squares (OLS) regression, propensity score matching addresses the issue of self-selection bias and allows for a decomposition of treatment effects on outcomes. Using panel data from a national survey of bachelor's…

Universities attempt to hire the highest quality faculty they can, but they are not always successful at retaining them. Furthermore, some faculty members who do remain may not function as engaging colleagues who make others want to stay. This study investigates why some faculty members leave and why others stay by illuminating the complexities of…

Professional journals serve an important function within most disciplines as they offer a mechanism for professional communication. In the field of higher education, research on methodological characteristics of the published literature has been sparse. This study used content analysis to identify the types of research designs and analytical…

This study used Tobit analysis to estimate retention probabilities and credit hours at two universities. Tobit was judged as appropriate for this problem because it recognizes the lower bound of zero on credit hours and incorporates this bound into parameter estimates and forecasts. Models are estimated for credit hours in a single year and…

A study piloted a new approach to assessing the effects of changes in funding for state grant programs on college assistance. Analysis of Washington's state grant program indicates that an increase in state funds for need-based grants in 1993-1994 resulted in improved within-year persistence in public four-year universities. It is concluded that…