During the past decade, quantitative researchers have examined the first-year university experience from both variable-centred and person-centred perspectives. These studies have, however, generally been cross-sectional and therefore often failed to address how student learning changes during this transition. Furthermore, research has been…

This study investigates the influence of structural transitions to high school on adolescents' friendship networks and academic grades from 6th through 12th grade, in a direct comparison of students who do and do not transition. We utilize data from 14,462 youth in 51 networks from 26 districts (Promoting School-Community Partnerships to Enhance…

This study focuses on a wellness learning community in order to report changes that were made to its operation and to determine if its members had higher levels of satisfaction than did other students living in the same residence hall. Research was conducted on the wellness learning community at a Midwest university to determine if changes made in…

Problem Statement: Behavior is the visible conclusion of unseen values. More concretely, the teaching attitudes of teachers are affected by their values. The study of values is therefore fundamental to the study of teaching. If it is possible to understand the values of teachers, it is possible to estimate the teaching behaviors of teacher…

Political interest is one of the most consistent predictors of political participation, but little research has examined how it develops. This study explores adolescents' political interest development during the 2012 U.S. presidential election. The research team collected and analyzed longitudinal data (surveys, interviews, observations) in high…

Based on the Theory of Transactional Distance and Needs Assessment, this article reports a procedure for quantitatively measuring how close the actual delivery of a course was to ideal, as perceived by students. It extends Zhang's instrument and prescribes the computational steps to calculate relative proximity at the element and construct…

In this study, the authors surveyed undergraduate students at a large northeastern business school concerning influences on their choices of major. The authors examined factors such as why students initially select particular majors and which positive and negative factors relate to any later changes in those choices. Results show that interest in…