At a community college in the state of Florida, student retention has become a critical concern because more than half of the first-year first-generation students fail to graduate. That rate is four times higher than for other first-year students. Guided by Tinto's Student Integration Model as the conceptual framework, this intrinsic qualitative…

In the last 40 years in much of the western world dropout rates in higher education have remained almost unchanged. Although student retention seems to be the most studied and discussed aspect, nearly every empirical study on the causes of dropout in higher education and even more the impact of retention actions carried out by universities, in…

The transition from school to university mathematics is a challenging process for many students, which is reflected in high dropout rates during the first year at university. Using mediation analysis, we want to shed light on the role of students' attitudes towards mathematics--especially their interest in mathematics and their mathematical…

In higher education, many students do not complete their studies within the term allotted. A Dutch university implemented an intervention aimed to reduce this form of academic procrastination. The intervention consisted of three measures: (1) requiring students to acquire all first-year credits within their first year in university, (2) reducing…

The transition from school to university mathematics is a challenging process for many students. This phenomenon is reflected by high dropout rates from mathematics programs especially during the first year at university that may be related to the development of students' mathematical interest and self-concept. Taking a learning psychological…

College freshmen experience unique stressors when transitioning from high school to college. In Idaho, the freshman attrition rate is higher than the national average, which may be partially explained by the higher prevalence of depression in this region. The current study investigated the potential of cortisol, a stress hormone, to be a biomarker…

Many of the first-year undergraduate students who enrol in universities, particularly in top-ranked private universities in Bangladesh, struggle with getting good grades. As a result, many students look forward to a bleak future, dropping out midway through their studies. Thus, improving the rates of graduation and reducing the rates of attrition…

To address the mounting concern about the validity of student self-reported data, this study relies on official matriculation records to gauge the effect of classroom diversity on student dropout risk. Using panel data to track the 4-year dropout risk of a cohort of new first-year students (N = 3545) at a public research university, we employ a…

Students' expectancy-value beliefs play an important role in shaping their educational choices and behaviors. Drawing on Eccles and Wigfield 's (2020) situated expectancy-value theory, we investigated short-term changes in students' expectancy-value beliefs in gateway math courses for beginning university students. In Study 1a, we collected data…

This study examined graduation and persistence among social and behavioral science students at a regional comprehensive university. Hazard analyses identified predictors of student trajectories, times at which predictors were more or less impactful, and interactions between predictors such that particular risk factors were more detrimental for…

In this paper, we present our experience with redesigning an introductory computer science course for (electrical) engineers with blended learning concepts. It is a large mandatory course with eight credit points over the course of two semesters, where first year electrical engineers learn how to program with Arduino, C and Python. Additionally,…

Since the number of students entering into the higher education system is increasing along with the dropout rates, therefore it is important for the institutions to identify the reasons that impact students' academic performance in order to introduce the provision for necessary support for the students. This study is stimulated by the demand to…