The first year, first-semester community college students on academic probation and the factors affecting their academic success have been on the rise. As such, many students who are not making satisfactory academic progress (SAP) are at risk of losing their financial aid and, quite possibly, dropping out of school. The purpose of this study was…

The purpose of this study was to determine if retention of first-year college students was influenced by specific variables and programs at one Midwest community college. The study was focused on responses from the Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE) (Center for Community College Student Engagement, 2013) and peer mentoring…

We aimed to compare the findings of three research designs to bracket effect estimates of a strongly worded warning letter delivered by certified mail to students on academic probation. We embedded an experiment within a regression discontinuity design and calculated two achievement estimates, average GPA and percentage of students remaining on…

AACRAO partnered with a large public university in the southwestern United States to examine a multi-year data set and to complete a student survey in order to gain insights into variables that contribute to excess credit accumulation at graduation. Until state legislatures began to decrease funding for public colleges and universities, excess…

Teacher quality is the most important school-based factor affecting student learning and achievement. In 2009, the Race to the Top (RttT) federal education initiative provided an opportunity for states to compete for federal grant resources to reform their public education systems, which included revamping teacher evaluation systems to improve…

An important institutional and societal dilemma is how to notify people when they are not meeting performance standards, such as in placing people on a probationary status at school or work. A critical and underappreciated aspect of this dilemma, this dissertation suggests, is that people commonly understand themselves to be in relation with…

Student engagement can be thought as the intersection between student behaviors and institutional conditions (Kuh et al., 2007). Focusing on what the institution does, academic probation is a policy intended to enable student engagement (Arcand, 2013; Duffy, 2010; Houle, 2013; Holland, 2005). However, academic probation is also a classification…

Across society, the consistent influx of students enrolling in higher education institutions without a comparable increase in degree attainment has produced a heightened awareness and a desire to identify the factors related to influencing college success. This dissertation aims to develop a greater understanding of three potentially relevant…

Effective time management often undergirds students' success in college, and many postsecondary learning centers offer services to help students assess and improve this aspect of their learning skills. In the context of a college success course, we gathered insights from assignments to consider various facets of students' time-related behaviors…

Much research exists to support the positive effects of mentorship programs on improving grades and retention rates for MSW students. With the rapid growth in online MSW programs, the need to provide mentorship in electronic formats is also increasing. This retrospective longitudinal study examines the impact of an electronically delivered…

In this study, we explored whether a uniquely designed First Year Experience (FYE) class for newly admitted at-risk college students would increase academic success; help students avoid academic probation; and increase retention for the following semester. Participants included 40 students (75% African Americans, 20% Hispanic Americans, and 5%…

During the 21st century, more students have been enrolled in U.S. higher education than ever before. These individuals are entering postsecondary education from more diverse backgrounds and with a much broader range of overall goals, values, and skills than their peers before them. As first-year students begin to navigate higher education, they…

As the push towards lowering attrition of university students intensifies, particularly for first-time-in-college freshmen, administrators and campus leaders are increasingly designing and implementing co-curricular programs to support this population in order to positively impact student outcomes, namely, the grade point average, student…

Social networking web sites is not a new medium for users. The growth of this media helps students communicate and socialize with their friends or followers and used for education. The retention number of students is an issue or real problem in higher educational institutions since it is related to institution overall performance. This research…

This qualitative study explored the experiences of former probationary students to understand how their academic self-efficacy was enhanced. For this reason, I drew upon the self-efficacy theoretical framework. Narrative data were generated in interviews with 13 participants of a public research-intensive four-year college located in the…