The relationship between Black Greek-letter organization membership and African American student engagement in almost exclusively White college classrooms was explored in this study. Data were collected through interviews with 131 members from seven undergraduate chapters at a large, predominantly White university in the Midwest. This study…

Across Canada there is increased attention to the important relationship between the quality of learning environments--particularly effective teaching--and student achievement. "What did you do in school today?" proposes a multi-dimensional framework of student engagement as a core idea for improving the quality of teaching and learning…

In today's increasingly complex and competitive global economy, a range of skills and a variety of learning tools are necessary for postsecondary students to succeed after they graduate. With this in mind, educators are using an increasing number of new technologies for the classroom to improve learning and increase pass rates among students.…

The primary purpose of this exploratory study is to provide insight on how to use online discussions to foster collaborative learning and how to design assessment processes to evaluate the effectiveness of those discussions. This study focuses on the pedagogical role of discussion, effective practices in discussion, guidelines for creating…

To complement traditional learning activities in a masters-level research methodology course, social work students worked on a formal research project which involved: designing the study, constructing measures, selecting a sampling strategy, collecting data, reducing and analyzing data, and finally interpreting and communicating the results. The…

The purpose of this study was to examine students' levels of engagement in educational practices by enrollment status, time of enrollment, and size of college in community colleges. Specifically, this study assessed the quality of the undergraduate education through students' self-reported data about their academic and nonacademic activities. The…

As educators and practitioners continue to seek effective interventions to prevent dropout, they must focus on identifying, monitoring, and addressing risk factors that are influenced by teachers (e.g., academic performance, peer and adult interactions, attendance, and behavior). As a result, teachers' roles in dropout prevention are critical.…

To promote student engagement, professors must actively seek to create the conditions that foster engagement. Chickering and Gamson (1987) suggest that good practices in undergraduate education are ones that: encourage student-faculty contact, develop reciprocity and cooperation among students, encourage active learning, provide students with…

The achievement gap between southeastern Wisconsin schools and those in the rest of the state has widened in all subjects and at all grade levels from 2006. Although school spending is above the state average in the region, and removing the Milwaukee, Racine, and Kenosha public school districts from the equation currently improves overall…

As governors confront the worst state fiscal environment in the past 25 years, long-term prospects for strong economic growth are hampered by an immense underlying problem: the high school dropout crisis. At least one student in five drops out of school, and nearly 5 million 18- to 24-year-olds lack a high school diploma. Annually, dropouts cost…

The National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) provides participating schools an Institutional Report that includes (among many documents) mean comparisons, frequency distributions, and student respondent data as part of its standard reporting package. Sifting through all this data can leave even experienced researchers wondering where to start…

For the thirty-seventh year, the Research and Theory Division and the Division of Instructional Design of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) sponsored the publication of these Proceedings. Papers published in this volume were presented at the annual AECT Convention in Jacksonville, Florida. This year's Proceedings…

Improving the quality of out-of-school time activities and creating effective learning environments is of keen interest to practitioners, funders and policymakers. Funded by The William Penn Foundation, "Quality Time After School" identifies characteristics of after-school activities that are linked to youth engagement and learning…

For some children, school failure is attributed to a lack in motivation. This article reports a study of motivation from an ecological perspective, considering the individual in interaction with the meaningful environment. Unlike much of the motivational literature that measures motivation in terms of constructs that are assessed largely via…

The "Core Indicators of Effectiveness Report" delineates the performance of Wyoming's community colleges as measured by the 14 indicators set forth by the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) and adopted by the seven Wyoming community colleges and the Wyoming Community College Commission. These indicators, while providing…