Developed to help instructors prevent their students from dropping out, this paper presents findings from the psychological literature that pertain to persistence. The paper focuses on research concerning: (1) goals, sub-goals, and feedback, which asserts that persistence at a task is influenced by goals, by whether or not a series of subgoals have been formulated, and by feedback to actions; (2) expectancy-value theories, which suggests that motivation and persistence at a task are jointly influenced by the degree to which individuals expect that their actions will lead to results, and the extent to which they value those results; (3) perceived self-efficacy, which maintains that persistence is influenced by individuals' judgments of their capabilities to organize and execute courses of action; (4) attribution of the reasons for past successes and failures; and (5) interruption-discrepancy theory of emotions, which claims that persistence is heavily influenced by the emotions felt when problems interrupt the completion of tasks. Specific findings in these areas of research are presented along with a series of research-based practical suggestions for encouraging persistence. 5 references. (EJV)