Virtual universities have developed considerably over the past decade, particularly on the African continent. They provide a way to deal with the considerable need to educate a large young population, but the lack of physical space can be a drawback that prevents students from succeeding and increasing dropout compared to a more traditional…

The quality of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) is an important topic to be addressed by different stakeholders: higher education institutions, MOOC providers, education companies, educational providers. National and international agencies are or will be deeply involved in preparing or attending common guidelines in order to fulfill quality of…

High school drop-out has been a source of worry to parents, students and government for over three decades. The idea of promoting teachers whose students passed more was muted in order to reduce High School Drop-out Rate (HSDR) and this situation has long been highly abused. A 60-item validated questionnaire (constituting key predictor factors for…

Despite the growth of its popularity in recent years, online learning has demonstrated high dropout rates compared to dropout rates in traditional face-to-face courses. Prior research attributes attrition to the physical isolation of students from one another and the lack of interaction between and among them--factors which foster feelings of…

PISA 2012 results indicate that school systems that group students based on ability levels tend to have lower performance than those that do not divide students by ability. One way some in the United States have sought to increase equity of opportunity is to mandate enrollment of students in college-preparatory mathematics, i.e., Algebra 1 in…

Many medical students use exchange programmes to enrich their portfolio. However, such a confrontation with reality can be challenging because custom and practice sometimes differ radically between countries. Exchange students post specific peculiarities, as encountered by them abroad, onto the medical exchange website. They can ask for the…

The monitoring and support of university freshmen is considered very important at many educational institutions. In this paper we describe the results of the educational data mining case study aimed at predicting the Electrical Engineering (EE) students drop out after the first semester of their studies or even before they enter the study program…

In many respects, Hispanic families share the aspirations and anxieties of many other families nationwide: They are keenly focused on the role completing high school and going to college will play in their children's future. Students and young adults see success in school and college as key to interesting work and a prosperous future, and most are…

Student retention is an important issue for all university administrators and faculty due to the potential negative impact of student attrition. In this study, retention rates will be studied with data from sophomore students who initially enrolled in the 2002 academic year at Arizona State University, following these students through their junior…

The purpose of this study was to identify the significant characteristics of distance education students who have dropped-out or continuously and successfully progressed in the distance education program at the NOU of Taiwan. The major focus was based on the found factors which might relate to the students' decisions for dropping out or staying in…