The California Community Colleges served more than 2.2 million students in 2011-12 and just shy of 2.1 million students in 2012-13. It is the largest system of higher education in the nation. All colleges and districts use state funding allocated for Disabled Student Programs and Services (DSPS) to assist in providing support services and…

While studies focused on student GPA scores, transfer credits and the nature of articulation agreements help to inform research related to the transfer student experience, studies investigating the students themselves are still very limited. This study extends the direction modeled by previous literature that has gathered perceptions and comments…

We study a popular dual enrollment program in Washington State, "Running Start" using a new administrative database that links high school and postsecondary data. Conditional on prior high school performance, we find that students participating in Running Start are more likely to attend any college but less likely to attend four-year…

In 2006, the National Center for Postsecondary Research, of which is MDRC is a partner, launched a demonstration of one-semester learning community programs at six colleges; five of these programs focused on developmental education. This is the executive summary of the final report from the project and includes findings from analyses that pool…

This qualitative study examines curriculum frameworks in English language teacher education (ELTE) programs in Turkey in light of current second language (L2) teaching standards and research vs Turkey's Higher Education Council (HEC) mandates. It also investigates program directors' perceptions about the current situations of their programs with…

It is of great significance to an institution of higher education to meet its goals and to establish its institutional effectiveness and that it has a framework for discussing its institutional performance results, accordingly this study aims to investigate a) the conditions for student success at the University with respect to the five benchmarks…

In an effort to improve developmental education students' outcomes, community colleges have been experimenting with acceleration strategies. Models of acceleration allow students to complete their developmental requirements in a shorter amount of time. However, there has been limited empirical research on the effects of accelerating students'…

This paper uses the credits-attempted perspective--in the context of how many credits a student attempts in their first year of college--and reports on several related projects all intended to evaluate potential interventions to raise academic momentum among first-year community college students. The presentation contrasts non-experimental…

Although a number of claims have been made describing massive open online courses (MOOCs) as a disruptive innovation in education, these claims have not yet been proven through research. Instead, MOOCs should perhaps be considered as an integrative model for higher education systems, but to do so will require recognition of credentials. Initial…

To improve student access and success in North Dakota University System institutions, the State Board of Higher Education has implemented enrollment policies that better reflect the differentiated missions of research universities, regional universities, and community colleges. This report addresses the transition in policy by grouping data by…

This study is an evaluative analysis of 13 Music Education programs in Colombia that provide training for secondary school music teachers for 6th to 11th grade in the Colombian education system. The study utilized an analysis matrix from the International Research Project ALFA II-0448-A, which developed a similar study with Latin American and…

This quantitative study examined first-year university and community college students who were former Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) high school students. Participants in this study were students from groups that are underrepresented in higher education. In the first sample of 329 graduates, grade point average and college credit…

Career planning courses are one of the most effective ways to improve career development, and the benefits to career decision-making are well documented. The research base regarding whether career courses contribute to academic outcomes is less well-developed. Although recent findings suggest that career courses may improve retention in the first-…

There has been considerable interest in British Columbia in improving secondary to post-secondary transitions, and the provincial government and secondary and post-secondary institutions have adopted a number of strategies intended to aid in successful student transition from one system to the other. This paper looks specifically at the policy and…

Developmental summer bridge programs are a popular strategy for increasing college readiness among recent high school graduates. Aimed at providing an alternative to traditional developmental education, these programs provide accelerated and focused learning opportunities in order to help students acquire the knowledge and skills needed for…