In response to a charge from the University Senate, a task force examined the influence of class size on student success in first-year composition courses that satisfy general education composition requirements. Using pre-existing data on first-time, first-year students with the entry cohort ranging from 2004 to 2015, a random forest analysis…

Attending university for the first time can be a stressful experience for young Indian students leaving home for the first time. They must cope with academic and social demands, which can affect their subjective well-being. In Indian culture, people view 'body-mind' as being heredity, which might help to cope and enhance SWB. The present study was…

This paper reports on the feasibility of "The Study Place Project" (TSP[superscript 2] ), a novel intervention designed to improve academic achievement and retention for first-year college students. Our aim was to provide students with regular study sessions in a minimal distraction environment, allowing them to apply their own…

Dad? The high school biology teacher? A childhood friend? Understanding who students believe influences their degree persistence will improve student retention and degree attainment. This study examined relationships between student perceptions of close social groups' (i.e., family, friends, and educators; FFEs) influence, motivational factors,…

This quantitative exploratory study investigated factors related to the fail rate of first-year students in Introduction to General Chemistry courses (CHEM 1xx) at a mid-sized public research university. This course represents a gateway course for many scientific, medical, and healthcare majors. The sample consisted of 595 undergraduate students…

This study examines the tuition elasticity of student enrollment for a public regional comprehensive master's university, Pittsburg State University in Kansas. Tuition elasticity is a measure of the responsiveness of student enrollment decisions due to changes in tuition over time. This measure is useful as it indicates how changes in tuition…

This study examined variables associated prospectively with the occurrence of dependent stressors encountered by first-year undergraduates. Stressors consisted of life events, daily hassles, and chronic stressors, the latter two being subjected to confirmatory analyses to identify their dimensionality. Results indicated that student status…

The importance of clarifying personal values has gained popularity in brief interventions recently, but little is known about factors that predict clarity in values or the benefits of values clarity in non-clinical populations. First-year college students and their mothers (99 dyads) completed an online survey where they rated the importance of 20…

Despite the wealth of inquiry focused on the first-year seminar (FYS), little research has examined the pedagogical components of such courses. There is also a lack of research that assesses the extent to which FYS influence students' intrapersonal, interpersonal, and epistemological development. The goal of this study was to qualitatively explore…

Mindfulness, which involves paying attention to present-moment experiences in an open, curious, and accepting manner, has received attention as a possible way to reduce substance use among university students. However, previous research on how mindfulness is related to alcohol use in university populations has yielded mixed findings, and thus far,…

A disappointingly high level of bias toward gay, lesbian, and bisexual (GLB) individuals has been recognized in the general population. The U.S. Department of Justice (2013) confirmed 20.8% of hate crimes reported to police in 2013 were founded on bias toward perceived sexual orientation. A recent Gallup Poll reported that 4.1% of the US…

Improving graduation rates is one of the biggest missions in many universities across the country and it is surely the case on the campus of this institution. The work here presents a statistical tool box to use early academic performance as a predictor for graduation with logistic regression and machine learning techniques. The methods described…

Background: This study aimed to investigate the relationship between Facebook age presentation, Facebook alcohol displays, and alcohol related risk factors among college students. Methods: Students from two universities in the United States enrolled and accepted a researcher's Facebook friend request. Participant's Facebook profiles were evaluated…

Conceptual physical education (CPE) courses play a critical role in promoting physical activity (PA) among students in American higher education settings. To date, however, very limited knowledge is available about the effectiveness of such courses. Aims: The primary purpose of the study was to examine effects of a CPE course on altering freshmen…

The University of Macau located in Macau Special Administration Region recently relocated its campus from Macau to the neighbouring island of Hengqin and requires all first year students to live on campus in the newly established residential college system. This paper examines the effect of being homesick on perceived university support of first…