Undergraduates' distress has increased dramatically since the COVID-19 pandemic's onset, raising concerns for academic achievement. Yet little is known about the mechanisms by which pandemic-related distress may affect students' learning and performance, and consequently, how we might intervene to promote student achievement despite the continuing…

We replicate and extend prior work on Florida's Bright Futures merit aid scholarship to consider its effect on college enrollment and degree completion. We estimate causal impacts using a regression discontinuity design to exploit SAT thresholds that strongly determine eligibility. We find no positive impacts on attendance or attainment, and…

Many first-generation college students -- whose parents have not obtained a four-year college degree -- experience a "cultural mismatch" due to a lack of alignment between the independent values of their university (consistent with the culture of higher education) and their own interdependent values (consistent with working-class…

Students often experience psychological barriers that negatively impact their academic performance. For example, students may experience motivated disengagement and limited access to manageable and actionable strategies when needed. Past research has shown that scientifically informed interventions can mitigate such barriers and improve success…

This paper explores the concept of dynamically generating definitions using a deep-learning model. We do this by creating a dataset that contains definition entries and contexts associated with each definition. We then fine-tune a GPT-2 based model on the dataset to allow the model to generate contextual definitions. We evaluate our model with…

In contrast to simple feedback, which provides students with the correct answer, elaborated feedback provides an explanation of the correct answer with respect to the student's error. Elaborated feedback is thus a challenge for AI in education systems because it requires dynamic explanations, which traditionally require logical reasoning and…

Advancing technology such as artificial intelligence and robots is steadily replacing jobs in the USA. Continuous skill-upgrading and re-skilling are critical for workers to remain employable throughout their careers. In these social and economic contexts, community colleges play significant roles to provide workforce education and training…

This study reports on validation of a writing motivation survey and its relationship with a variety of indicators of academic performance of 566 undergraduate students drawn from six US postsecondary institutions. A writing motivation survey was used to capture students' writing goals, confidence, beliefs, and affect. Two research questions are…

We used longitudinal data on high school students in Washington State to assess the relationships between English Language Arts (ELA) teacher qualifications and the high school and postsecondary outcomes of their students, and whether these relationships differed for students with and without disabilities. We found that students assigned to…

Low retention rates in college is a policy concern for US postsecondary institutions, and writing is a critical competency for college (Graham, 2019). This paper describes an exploratory writing analytics study at six 4-year universities aimed at gaining insights about the relationship between college retention and writing. Findings suggest that…

This report from the Career and Technical Education (CTE) Research Network Lead team provides final results from an evaluability assessment of CTE programs that feasibly could be evaluated using a rigorous experimental design. Evaluability assessments (also called feasibility studies) are used in education and other fields, such as international…

Although the COVID-19 pandemic affected all education programs in the United States, career and technical education (CTE) programs in particular faced significant challenges given the hands-on and team-based nature of many CTE courses. This report presents findings from interviews with 22 CTE programs to learn about their responses to the…

This spotlight explores culturally responsive practices implemented by two grantees from the Supporting Effective Educator Development (SEED) program with the U.S. Department of Education: Georgia State University and UnboundEd. In its CREATE Teacher Residency, Georgia State University implements a three-year curriculum focused on developing…

Students' self-determination plays a critical role in both in-school and post-school outcomes. This study examined the self-determination of English learners with disabilities in secondary school, based on a secondary analysis of the National Longitudinal Transition Study 2012 (NLTS 2012). The NLTS 2012 youth survey, conducted in English and…

This paper presents an overall educational philosophy of working with students underprepared for college-level work, which we term "a pedagogy of preparation." We consider how instructors scaffolded instruction to foster college readiness in students who were now able to enroll in college-level work regardless of academic preparation…