This study was conducted to investigate the relative importance of social and academic factors in influencing the probability of transfer from a community college to a four-year college. The structural model used in the study was composed of the following constructs: the effect of social class, race, and gender on students' academically related…

Designed to assist educators in formulating Total Quality Improvement (TQI) plans, this book examines the processes of TQI, which allow for the review of college administration, student services, teaching, and institutional culture, and provides information on its implementation at two-year colleges. Chapter 1 describes background to educational…

In this article, the author shares his notes toward a shared future for National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) and Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC). He discusses how activism has been at the heart of both organizations, how language activism in particular has separated NCTE and CCCC--and brought them together, and…

The authors focused on how a personalized response system ("clickers") could be used to promote more complex thinking in two sections of an intermediate college-level Spanish class. Using Bloom's Revised Taxonomy (2001), they designed questions to go beyond Bloom's lower-order thinking levels (recalling, understanding, and applying) to the…

This multi-method study explored English Language Learner (ELL) enrollment and engagement in a community college to address a dearth of research on ELL retention in this context. Quantitative analyses were performed on four fall semester transcripts of ELLs (N = 161) and on samples of ELLs and non-ELLs (n = 139) matching in age, enrollment status,…

Used Rasch analytic procedures to study item bias or differential item functioning in both dichotomous and scalar items on a test of English for academic purposes. Results for 139 college students on a pilot English language test model the approach and illustrate the measurement challenges posed by a diagnostic instrument to measure English…

A program in Jewish Studies is being offered by the Los Angeles Valley College, Van Nuys, California. Courses are offered in elementary and intermediate Hebrew, Contemporary Hebrew Literature in Translation, History of the Jewish People, Hebrew Civilization I and II, Israel: The Theory and Practice of Zionism, Jewish Religious Heritage, The Jew in…

A program-level assessment of the biology curriculum at a small liberal arts college validates a previous study demonstrating success in achieving learning outcomes related to content knowledge and communication skills. Furthermore, research opportunities have been provided to complement pedagogical strategies and give students a more complete…

The availability of timely, reliable, and valid measures of the work performed by the administration at the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA) enables the university to manage its enrollment and preserve the quality of academic programs and support services. The information in this fact book constitutes the empirical foundation of the…

This article presents findings from a study of first tier managers in English Further Education colleges, a role critically neglected within the literature, despite its centrality to organisational effectiveness and learner success. The role was found to be diverse, contested and elastic and while first tier managers were found to be highly…

This study addresses the challenges concerning the internationalisation of higher education, with a particular focus on designing new international programmes. It presents a case study of a novel international study programme: the MA in Media Education at the Faculty of Education at the University of Lapland, Finland. The study looks into its…

This report results from the 1996 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Hopwood v. Texas, which declared that race may not be taken into account for the purpose of creating a diverse student body. The report offers recommendations to Texas policymakers and educators concerning creative approaches to encourage more representative student bodies in light of…

Despite decades of successful implementation at the K-12 level, cooperative learning (CL) has been slow to catch on at the college level. Resistance by instructors and students alike has slowed its diffusion. Some resistance stems from poor experiences with CL, but potential adopters often fail to realize that effective CL rests on a set of…

Learning to conduct interactive classroom discussions is a high priority for becoming an effective teacher, and most teachers view conducting productive classroom discussions as a complex undertaking. Because the dynamics of facilitating classroom discussions are multifaceted and hard to analyze in real time, there is a growing interest in how…

An overview is presented of a program that utilizes the abilities of a team of university professors to improve curriculum, build a staff development program, and establish diagnostic/prescriptive reading and mathematics programs in a junior high school. The school is in the inner city of Charleston, West Virginia, and its population is comprised…