Safety is essential to student well-being and success. Because of this, a large percentage of parents and children are concerned about school safety. To get a better understanding of school safety from a student's perspective, ACT-tested students were surveyed and asked about their school's climate and the types of safety measures their school…

Students from low-income families consistently trail behind their peers in retention and degree attainment. Research on college student experiences suggests that low-income students experience "cultural mismatch" at college--they feel that their backgrounds are at odds with the middle-class values dominant on campus (Armstrong &…

This study extends previous research on the long-term connections between motivation constructs in expectancy-value theory and achievement outcomes. Using growth mixture modelling, we examined trajectories of change for 421 students from 4th grade through college in their self-concept of ability (SCA) in math, interest in math, and perceived…

In 2001, Illinois began administering the ACT (American College Testing) test to all 11th graders in Illinois public schools as part of the Prairie State Achievement Exam (PSAE). For the first time, ACT scores and background information were available for most public-school students who would be completing high school one year later, rather than…

The message that college matters is getting through to more and more young people. Young people understand that a middle-class lifestyle increasingly requires at least an associate degree. Yet the percentage of college students actually completing a two- or four-year degree has not increased significantly in more than 30 years. College completion…