In the summer of 1982, the Austin Independent School District (AISD) Office of Research and Evaluation (ORE) conducted a survey of dropouts. Dropouts are defined in this study as students who withdrew from AISD schools prior to receiving their high school diploma and are not known to have attended other schools. The dropouts were interviewed to…

Three institutions effected agreements enabling students in all of the institutions to enroll in the same course, a six-credit introductory psychology course. The three institutions--Athabasca University (AU), The Open Learning Institute (OLI), and North Island College (NIC)--were distance education institutions with open admissions policies which…

The first phase of a study to predict retention and withdrawal among disadvantaged students at an urban commuter institution is described. Variable selection for the study was guided by Tinto's (1975) and Bean's (1982) models. Pilot testing was undertaken to estimate some psychometric characteristics of Pascarella and Terenzini's institutional…

This report is concerned with students who either dropped out or were dismissed from grades 9 through 12 during 1983-84 in 14 school systems in Arkansas. It is intended for use by state government, the State Department of Education, state and local policymakers, school administrators and staffs, parents, and young people. The data presented in…

Discusses student retention as an institution-wide responsibility. Says enrollment maintenance requires three ingredients: (1) satisfied students and alumni, (2) caring teachers and staff, and (3) concerned, aware administrators. (CH)

Northern Virginia Community College (NVCC) conducted a telephone survey and two focus groups to determine why students who enrolled for the first time during fall 1999 did not return for the following spring 2000 semester. The main reasons that 557 telephone survey respondents gave were that approximately: (1) 17% had either transferred to another…

This document addresses the problem of students withdrawing from courses before completion and in the process attempts to devise ways that Mendocino College can aid students complete their courses. The report uses findings from two research reports. The first report was completed at the Florida Community College (FCC), which discovered that 75% of…

Five groups of undergraduate students (dropouts, low stopouts, low persisters, high stopouts, and high persisters) were compared in terms of their use of various campus facilities and their responses to a checklist of personal problems. The use of campus facilities is correlated with continuance in school. (Author/MLW)

The Student Performance and Progress Study (SPPS) was established at the Australian National University in an attempt to identify the causes of high attrition rates and to suggest policy formulations to reduce the attrition rates. Studies fall into four main categories: demographic, university performance, university experience, and previous…

Presents findings from Johnson County Community College follow-up surveys of nonreturning students. Indicates that most nonreturning students had achieved their educational goals, had improved various cognitive and noncognitive behaviors because of their college experiences, and planned to reenroll in college eventually. Describes reasons for…

A study investigated the extent to which 104 community college students' experiences with key college processes during the first few weeks of school predicted their persistence or withdrawal from the college in the second semester. Results identified a small set of processes, both administrative and instructional, that differentiated between…

The U.S. Department of Education and various education commentators maintain that dropout rates have been decreasing for African-Americans and the school population as a whole. This paper presents evidence that dropout rates may be going up rather than down and identifies reasons for the conflicting data. The reasons include varied definitions of…

Designed to survey the effects of the current probation policy at Shasta College, this report estimates the student loss attributable to the policy and discusses means of identifying potential probationary students. After introducing the probation policy, which requires at least a 2.0 grade point average to avoid academic probation and the…

Behind the negative composite profile of school dropouts often lie the internalized characteristics of low self-esteem, thwarted ambition, and personal failure. This document presents an analysis of several different demographic, behavioral, and academic characteristics of students who withdrew from grades 9, 10, 11, and 12 in the Nashville…

Some issues in defining dropouts and reporting information about them are explored, with reference to the Common Core of Data (CCD) survey of the National Center for Education Statistics. There has not been any uniform national count of how many students leave school, and no commonly accepted definition has been developed that allows a number to…