The College Possible program provides intensive coaching by near-peer mentors, peer group support, and opportunities for academic and non-cognitive skill building to low-income students through an intensive two-year curriculum in junior and senior years of high school. The goal of the program is to close the achievement gap between low-income…

In this paper, we report results from a multisite, student-level randomized controlled trial that examined the impact of the Building Assets, Reducing Risks (BARR) model on ninth-grade students. The BARR model is a comprehensive, strength-based approach that uses eight interlocking strategies to build intentional staff-to-staff, staff-to-student,…

Historically, minority and low-income populations have faced numerous challenges in achieving a higher education particularly students of Latino descent. Gandara and Contreras (2009) explain that Latinos are the fastest growing population in the United States and yet academically, they are further behind than any other ethnic group in the nation.…

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether participating in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) project-based learning (PBL) activities effected students who had varied performance levels and to what extent students' individual factors influenced their mathematics achievement. STEM PBL has been a critical challenge…