The study investigates a tension between affirmative action scholars who hypothesize that affirmative action bans would increase underrepresented minority students' STEM college completions and scholars who have empirically estimated declines. It also questions results that that find no existence of a STEM penalty (compared to non-STEM) caused by…

Expanding the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australian (hereafter respectfully Indigenous) talent pool to undertake valuable roles in business, health, education, academia, government, policy development and community development is critical for addressing current disparities between Indigenous and other Australians. Parity of access and…

The purpose of this review of literature is to identify variables (Hart 1998), relevant to AI/AN postsecondary persistence, and to examine the relationship between findings and postsecondary persistence theories at 2 and 4-year institutions. An exhaustive review with selective citation was used to locate relevant documents. Due to the limited…

In response to the mounting national support provided to mentoring programs and initiatives in higher education, the present article updates a review article written by Jacobi ("Rev Educ Res" 61(4):505-532, 1991). The article revisits the mentoring literature in an attempt to re-frame and update the definition and characteristics of mentoring…

Postsecondary remediation is a controversial topic. On one hand, it fills an important and sizeable niche in higher education. On the other hand, critics argue that it wastes tax dollars, diminishes academic standards, and demoralizes faculty. Yet, despite the ongoing debate, few comprehensive, large-scale, multi-institutional evaluations of…

Twenty-seven studies are reviewed that investigate the effect of instructional methods, courses, programs, and general college experiences on changes in college students' thinking. The results did support the conclusion that college attendance improves critical thinking. (Author/MLW)

Three kinds of research concerning quality in higher education (reputational, objective indicators, and quantitative correlate) are described and illustrated, the merits and disadvantages of each are discussed, and the present state of research on educational quality is examined. (MSE)

Salient findings of six studies assessing the construct validity of Tinto's model of college student attrition are described. The studies are based on three independent data collections over a three-year period and indicate the students' informal contacts with faculty are consistently related to subsequent persistence/withdrawal decisions.…

A series of analyses on college students' assessments of their teachers and courses is continued in this review, with focus on the circumstances of rating (i.e., anonymity of student raters, purposes of ratings, presence of instructor during rating, timing, rating format, sampling). Issues of bias and comparability are also discussed. (LBH)

Thirty-one studies in which students and faculty specified the instructional characteristics they considered particularly important to good teaching and effective instruction were analyzed for commonalities. Results were compared with those of an earlier study of student ratings. (Author/MSE)

The author of a previously published article reporting a study clarifies the relationship of his own work to that of research completed earlier. The study extended the investigation of specific classroom techniques and their effects on student learning. (MSE)

Among findings of a review of research on college students' preconceptions of male and female college teachers were that, in the majority of studies, students' global evaluations of male and female teachers as professionals were not different, though in a minority of studies, male teachers received higher overall evaluations than did female…

Research on college students' evaluations of their male and female teachers is synthesized and compared with results of research on student evaluation of hypothetical male and female teachers. Results suggest the interaction of gender, teacher characteristics/behaviors, and student perceptions and expectations is complex. (MSE)

Conceptual and methodological recommendations for enhancing research on the influences of college on students are offered, including isolating net college effects, studying the timing of change, estimating college effect sizes, examining direct and conditional effects, and the potential benefits of qualitative approaches. Areas for future inquiry…

Attributional retraining, the restructuring of an individual's explanations for events in his environment, is proposed as one method of enhancing college student motivation and achievement, particularly for high-risk students. Drawing on previous research and theory, the most promising strategies for using attributional retraining with this…