The College Discovery Summer Program (CDSP) is a 6-week program designed to bring students already accepted for admissions to Bronx Community College (BCC) onto campus prior to their first year at BCC. The curriculum component of the CDSP includes intensive courses in mathematics, reading, and writing, while the student development component is a…

Two types of student response inventories for appraising instruction, the Student Instruction Report (SIR) and the Inventory of Student Perceptions of Instruction (ISPI) were administered to 554 students in 30 classes at two Georgia colleges. Mean responses to items were used in principal components analyses with varimax rotation. The two…

Quantitative and qualitative methods were used to study retention and first-semester grade point average at Boise State University (Idaho), a metropolitan university with many commuter students. The quantitative portion of the study was based on questionnaires completed by 235 freshmen; the qualitative part was based on interviews with a…

Determines how academic ability, music experience, and musical aptitude contribute to grade prediction in the written-work, ear-training, sight-singing, and keyboard-harmonics portions of two college freshman music theory courses. Finds Scholastic Aptitude Test mathematics scores the best predictor of grades in written work and ear training.…

The predictive validity of the Comparative Guidance and Placement Program (CGP) tests for two diverse curricular groups was examined. Three methods for developing predictive equations were compared. The CGP was administered to 417 Liberal Studies and 316 Business Technical students at a New England community college. Principal component analyses…

This study examines the academic performance of second language (L2) applicants who are admitted to a university on the basis of the number of years completed in English-medium secondary school. Such language-residency requirements are underexamined in the research literature. Results from the first 2 years of a 4-year longitudinal study indicate…

A study was conducted at Merrimack College in Massachusetts to compare the grades of students who took the recommended course as determined by their mathematics placement exam score and those who did not follow this recommendation. The goal was to decide whether the mathematics placement exam used at Merrimack College was effective in placing…

Students who withdrew from the State University of New York at Oswego during academic year 1974-1975 were surveyed to study the differences between them and their classmates who persisted. A sample of 52 students responded to questionnaires inquiring why they had chosen to attend Oswego, why they left early, and what their present educational…

To improve selection and training at both Bachelor's and Master's levels, an evaluation study of the alumni of the College of Education was undertaken. Alumni were sent questionnaires to ascertain their feelings about their training, and a rating scale was sent to the principals of schools where alumni were teaching (see TM 001 301 for sample).…

This study, which is a companion to a study on 10-year enrollment and graduation patterns for new freshmen and transfers, sought to quantify how much more likely college students were to graduate if they were transfers, were enrolled continuously, were mostly full-time, and began their academic careers with good first-semester grade point averages…

Data collected in a fall 1975 survey of the spring 1974 graduates of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH) were used to analyze the effects that various student characteristics have on the selection of post-college activities by bachelor's degree graduates. A 25-percent stratified, random sample was used with a response rate of…

High school and college grades are suggested to have the nature of ordinal scales rather than interval scales; hence the median is the appropriate and preferred average, rather than the mean. The use of a median grade point average has some of the major advantages of pass-fail grading. Assuming grades to be ordinal rather than interval data…

The Department of Mathematics at Iowa State University teaches a freshman-level Discrete Mathematics course with total enrollment of about 1,800 students per year. The traditional format includes large lectures, with about 150 students each, taught by faculty and temporary instructors in two class sessions per week and recitation sections, with…

This study identified input, environmental, and output variables accounting for differences between successful and unsuccessful groups of underprepared students at Johnson County Community College (Kansas). The study applied an adaptation of Alexander Astin's input-environment-output model of assessing student and institutional effectiveness.…

This follow-up study, part of the National Study of Student Support Services compared the status of 2,900 disadvantaged students receiving student support services (SSS) since entering college 3 years earlier and 2,900 nonparticipating comparable students. Services offered varied among institutions but were all intended to help students stay in…