The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between academic self-efficacy, dispositional optimism/pessimism, and preferences regarding the use of text materials and in-class activities of college students at a university that serves one of the highest-poverty regions in the United States. A sample of 105 students was surveyed.…

Colleges and universities work hard to create environments that encourage student learning, and they develop grading policies, in part, to motivate their students to perform well. Grades provide two kinds of information about a student's abilities and learned knowledge: "internal" information that informs the students themselves about the…

LASSI responses were combined with SAT and GPA information from 342 first year college students to examine relationships between study habits, motivation, gender and achievement. Gender pervasively influenced the results. Despite lower SAT scores, females attained higher first year college GPAs. LASSI [Learning and Study Skills Inventory]…

This study was requested by the Senate International Affairs Committee. The research questions included: (1) What factors affect the cumulative GPA (CGPA) of International students at TRU?; (2) What factors affect the retention of International students at TRU?; and (3) Are Student Success Courses among the significant factors for GPA and…

Academic confidence cultivated within the context of learning communities may be an important key to student success. This study examined the structural relationships of four constructs on academic performance and persistence for summer bridge learning community (SBLC) and non-SBLC members. Constructs included (1) student background, (2) academic…

The purpose of this study is to illustrate techniques for correcting a correlation between a predictor of success in college (admission test score or indicator of high school performance) with a measure of success in college (one-year retention or first-year GPA) given the restricted variances in the population used to calculate the correlations.…

The widespread popularity of programs for first-year students is due, in large part, to studies showing that participation in first-year programs is significantly related to students' academic success. Because students choose to participate in first-year programs, self-selection effects prevent researchers from making causal claims about the…

Supplemental Instruction (SI) has widely been used in university classrooms around the world. However, many obstacles face SI -- including low student attendance, lack of faculty support, and recognition of today's online generation. This research helps to fill the gap in SI by posing to solve the problems mentioned above by extending SI into the…

Social networking is a tool being explored by many institutions as a means of connecting to and communicating with students. This study explores whether or not students' use of social networking services (SNSs) has significant effects on social connectedness, college adjustment, academic engagement, and institutional commitment. Students' use of…

Background: All types of librarians are expected to possess information and computer skills to actively assist patrons in accessing information and in recognizing reputable sources. Mastery of information and computer skills is a high priority for library and information science programs since graduate students have varied multidisciplinary…

Building on Shulruf, Hattie and Tumen (2008), this work examines the capacity of various National Certificate in Educational Achievement (NCEA)-derived models to predict first-year performance in Biological Sciences at a New Zealand university. We compared three models: (1) the "best-80" indicator as used by several New Zealand…

The current investigation sought to determine whether self-regulatory variables: "study strategies" and "self-satisfaction" correlate with first and second generation college students' grade point averages, and to determine if these two variables would improve the prediction of their averages if used along with high school grades and SAT scores.…

The purpose of this study was to integrate domain-learning theory and goal theory to investigate the learning processes, achievement goals, social goals, and achievement of 141 college students. Cluster-analytic procedures were used to categorize participants at different levels of expertise based on their responses on knowledge, interest, and…

This study compared college student reported grade point averages (GPA) with actual GPA as recorded at the Registrar's Office to determine the accuracy of student reported GPA. Results indicated that, on average, students reported slightly higher GPA than their actual GPA. Additionally, females were virtually as accurate as males and students with…

By probing the micro-level interactions and experiences shaping students' thoughts, behaviors, and decisions during college the authors hope to generate a better picture of how individuals enact the intersection of their own agency with their given social context. Such insights may enable a more accurate and meaningful interpretation of the…