xi, 73 p. : ill. / Recent studies have demonstrated a clear gap between the skills that high school graduates obtain by the completion of high school and those that are necessary for success in college as well as the workforce. Demands for more rigorous preparation at the high school level have prompted some states to make changes to state standards and high school graduation requirements. This dissertation used a prediction study to examine the coursetaking patterns of high school students in science and their subsequent success in chemistry 1A at the college level. Analysis of obtained data using a two-way ANOVA was used to estimate the main effects of (a) number of semesters of science courses and (b) the type of science courses and (c) the interaction effect on college performance as indicated by the final course grade. The results of this study indicate that the main effect of type and the main effect of number of semesters are both significant statistically. Taking more semesters of science in high school is positively associated with the final grade in first-year college chemistry. Taking higher level science coursework in high school is also positively associated with final grade. The interaction of type by number of semesters is not significant, however. Taking more semesters of higher level science coursework does not increase the likelihood of doing well in college chemistry, as there is no observable significant influence on final grade in chemistry, beyond the main effects described previously. / Committee in charge: Paul Yovanoff, Chairperson; David Conley, Member; Kathleen Scalise, Member; Kenneth Doxsee, Outside Member

Made available in DSpace on 2016-03-15T19:45:25Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Vanessa Maria da Silva.pdf: 765697 bytes, checksum: be1243aba9d8a8d2a626da6bfa8a68c9 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-03-09 / Instituto Presbiteriano Mackenzie / This work aims to address the graduation of English Language Teacher at Graduation Course in Language, whether the teaching of culture is present in the process of language teaching. We attempt to evaluate how effectively the Graduation Course in Language prepare its students, future teachers, to achieve the proposals devised by the National Curriculum Guidelines, for High School Foreign Language Teachers . The purpose of this research is to understand whether the Language Courses prepare effectively their students, future teachers, to achieve the goals envisioned by the OCN. The National Curriculum Guidelines contemplate the foreign languages teaching through contextualized socio-cultural approach in order to promote the development of social consciousness, creativity, open mind to new knowledge, finally, a new way of thinking and understanding the world. For this study we analyzed and established a parallel between the Education Plans of Language Courses of two prestigious universities in the State of São Paulo, a private university and a public university. We investigated the disciplines with a focus on English Language and verified in detail, based on the principle of linguistic and cultural connection, the presence or not of the culture study in language teaching. The results of this qualitative research indicate clear differences between theory and practice, it means, between the goals that the documents of Educational Institutions propose to the Language Courses and what the same documents suggest as practice. It is expected that this study instigates reflection, discussion and future research on the importance of the interconnection between the culture study and language teaching in Language Courses in the process of teachers graduation. / Este trabalho tem como objetivo investigar a formação de professores de Língua Inglesa pelos Cursos de Letras, a saber, se o ensino da cultura está presente no ensino da língua. Procuramos analisar como os Cursos de Letras preparam efetivamente seus alunos, futuros professores, para alcançarem as propostas idealizadas pelas Orientações Curriculares Nacionais, OCN, aos docentes de Língua Estrangeira no Ensino Médio. As Orientações Curriculares Nacionais contemplam o ensino de língua estrangeira contextualizado pela abordagem cultural, a fim de promover o desenvolvimento da consciência social, criatividade, mente aberta para conhecimentos novos, enfim, uma nova maneira de pensar e ver o mundo. Para este estudo analisamos e estabelecemos um paralelo entre os Planos de Ensino do Curso de Letras de duas conceituadas universidades do Estado de São Paulo, uma universidade privada e uma universidade pública. Investigamos as disciplinas com foco em língua inglesa e verificamos detalhadamente, com base no princípio de Conexão Linguístico-Cultural, a presença, ou não, do ensino da cultura no ensino de língua. Os resultados desta pesquisa qualitativa indicam diferenças evidentes entre a teoria e a prática, ou seja, entre os objetivos que os documentos das instituições de ensino propõem ao Curso de Letras e o que esses mesmos documentos sugerem como prática. Espera-se que este estudo instigue reflexão, discussão e futuras pesquisas sobre a relevância da interconexão entre o ensino da cultura no ensino de línguas nos Cursos de Letras para a formação de professores.

Increased enrollments of nontraditional students in U.S. higher education institutions have prompted many college and university administrators to consider student service programs. These programs ensure that support services are available to nontraditional students to cultivate healthy graduation rates among that student population. The purpose of this study was to discover factors that influence nontraditional students to become disengaged or be retained. The study was a qualitative case study with data collected from individual interviews with 10 nontraditional students participating in online and traditional onsite delivery systems at a private, nontraditional higher education institution in the western United States. The theoretical framework that guided this study was Knowles's andragogy theory. The research questions addressed students' perceptions of the role of persistence, barriers, self-direction, intrinsic motivation, delivery systems, learning modality, and academic and support services in their academic success. Data analysis was conducted to identify themes by coding the narrative responses and using member checks to validate data interpretations. Findings derived from the interviews indicated that students believed that they benefitted from a community of support within the university system. A professional development workshop was designed as a project to train university employees on how to create a professional learning community (PLC) to support students. This PLC was designed to promote positive social change by enhancing retention of adult students in academic programs until graduation and create an environment where people work together in a collaborative way within the university to ensure student success.

Esta tese situa-se na fronteira das tensões entre regulação social e emancipação social entendidas no debate geral das políticas de educação superior. Tais políticas estão vinculadas às estratégias de inserção da economia nas grandes transformações que vêm ocorrendo na base produtiva do capitalismo em âmbito mundial. Nesse contexto são instaurados programas de avaliação institucional que podem alterar os modelos de curso e de IES com o intuito de atender aos interesses da sociedade e do capital. Neste âmbito situa-se o objetivo desta tese - investigar os efeitos e as mudanças promovidas pelos processos de avaliação institucional externa nos modelos de universidade. A revisão de literatura destacou as concepções clássicas e contemporâneas de universidade e suas influências na construção de tipos, formatos e modelos de IES. Estudou-se também a agenda política dos organismos internacionais (Banco Mundial e UNESCO) com ênfase no binômio diferenciação e diversificação bem como a agenda dos processos de internacionalização e transnacionalização da Educação Superior influentes sobre os modelos das instituições contemporâneas. Igualmente fazem parte do corpo teórico que sustenta esta tese os modelos de avaliação existentes na literatura e seus enfoques político-filosóficos: liberalismo, fenomenologia e socialismo sem fim. O estudo metodológico de caráter exploratório e descritivo incluiu dados, fatos e fenômenos, que constituíram dois estudos de caso relativos a avaliações externas de dois cursos de graduação, um Curso de Medicina de universidade confessional do Brasil e um Curso de Microbiologia de universidade confessional de Portugal. Para elaborar os estudos de caso foram coletados depoimentos orais através de entrevistas in locu, analisados documentos e legislação dos dois países. As informações obtidas permitem apontar exemplos de mudanças resultantes das avaliações tanto na IES brasileira quanto na IES portuguesa. Aponta-se que os enfoques de avaliação externa vivenciados por estas IES, na sua época e contexto, alteraram o status da IES no caso brasileiro e o perfil do curso no caso português. Em ambas as instituições foram introduzidas melhorias nos cursos decorrentes das recomendações dos processos avaliativos externos. / This thesis is situated on the border tensions between social regulation and social emancipation understood in the general debate of the policies of Higher Education. Such policies are linked to the strategies of integration of the economy in major transformations occurring in the productive base of capitalism on the world level. In this context are instituted programs of institutional evaluation that may change the models of courses and IES in order to meet the interests of society and capital. In this area lies the aim of this thesis – investigate the effects and changes promoted by the external procedures of evaluation on the institutional models of university. A review of the literature highlighted the conceptions of classical and contemporary university and its influences in the construction of types, formats and models of IES. It also studied the political agenda of international organizations (the World Bank and UNESCO) with emphasis on binomial differentiation and diversification as well as the agenda of processes of internationalization and transnationalization of Higher Education influential on the contemporary models of institutions. Also part of the body that supports this thesis are the theoretical models of evaluation in literature and their political-philosophical approaches: liberalism, socialism and phenomenology without end. The methodological study of exploratory and descriptive character includes data, facts and phenomena, which constitute two studies of case concerning external evaluations of two graduation courses, a Medicine graduation course of a confessional university of Brazil and a Microbiology graduation course of a confessional university of Portugal. For the preparation of the case studies were collected through interviews oral testimony in locu, examined documents and legislation of the two countries. The information obtained allow to point examples of changes resulting from evaluation in both IES, Brazilian and Portuguese. It indicates that the external evaluation approaches experienced by these IES, in its time and context, changed the status of IES in the Brazilian case and the profile of the course in the Portuguese case. In both institutions improvements in courses have been introduced arising from recommendations of the external evaluation processes.

Esta tese situa-se na fronteira das tensões entre regulação social e emancipação social entendidas no debate geral das políticas de educação superior. Tais políticas estão vinculadas às estratégias de inserção da economia nas grandes transformações que vêm ocorrendo na base produtiva do capitalismo em âmbito mundial. Nesse contexto são instaurados programas de avaliação institucional que podem alterar os modelos de curso e de IES com o intuito de atender aos interesses da sociedade e do capital. Neste âmbito situa-se o objetivo desta tese - investigar os efeitos e as mudanças promovidas pelos processos de avaliação institucional externa nos modelos de universidade. A revisão de literatura destacou as concepções clássicas e contemporâneas de universidade e suas influências na construção de tipos, formatos e modelos de IES. Estudou-se também a agenda política dos organismos internacionais (Banco Mundial e UNESCO) com ênfase no binômio diferenciação e diversificação bem como a agenda dos processos de internacionalização e transnacionalização da Educação Superior influentes sobre os modelos das instituições contemporâneas. Igualmente fazem parte do corpo teórico que sustenta esta tese os modelos de avaliação existentes na literatura e seus enfoques político-filosóficos: liberalismo, fenomenologia e socialismo sem fim. O estudo metodológico de caráter exploratório e descritivo incluiu dados, fatos e fenômenos, que constituíram dois estudos de caso relativos a avaliações externas de dois cursos de graduação, um Curso de Medicina de universidade confessional do Brasil e um Curso de Microbiologia de universidade confessional de Portugal. Para elaborar os estudos de caso foram coletados depoimentos orais através de entrevistas in locu, analisados documentos e legislação dos dois países. As informações obtidas permitem apontar exemplos de mudanças resultantes das avaliações tanto na IES brasileira quanto na IES portuguesa. Aponta-se que os enfoques de avaliação externa vivenciados por estas IES, na sua época e contexto, alteraram o status da IES no caso brasileiro e o perfil do curso no caso português. Em ambas as instituições foram introduzidas melhorias nos cursos decorrentes das recomendações dos processos avaliativos externos. / This thesis is situated on the border tensions between social regulation and social emancipation understood in the general debate of the policies of Higher Education. Such policies are linked to the strategies of integration of the economy in major transformations occurring in the productive base of capitalism on the world level. In this context are instituted programs of institutional evaluation that may change the models of courses and IES in order to meet the interests of society and capital. In this area lies the aim of this thesis – investigate the effects and changes promoted by the external procedures of evaluation on the institutional models of university. A review of the literature highlighted the conceptions of classical and contemporary university and its influences in the construction of types, formats and models of IES. It also studied the political agenda of international organizations (the World Bank and UNESCO) with emphasis on binomial differentiation and diversification as well as the agenda of processes of internationalization and transnationalization of Higher Education influential on the contemporary models of institutions. Also part of the body that supports this thesis are the theoretical models of evaluation in literature and their political-philosophical approaches: liberalism, socialism and phenomenology without end. The methodological study of exploratory and descriptive character includes data, facts and phenomena, which constitute two studies of case concerning external evaluations of two graduation courses, a Medicine graduation course of a confessional university of Brazil and a Microbiology graduation course of a confessional university of Portugal. For the preparation of the case studies were collected through interviews oral testimony in locu, examined documents and legislation of the two countries. The information obtained allow to point examples of changes resulting from evaluation in both IES, Brazilian and Portuguese. It indicates that the external evaluation approaches experienced by these IES, in its time and context, changed the status of IES in the Brazilian case and the profile of the course in the Portuguese case. In both institutions improvements in courses have been introduced arising from recommendations of the external evaluation processes.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-12-17T14:36:18Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 GianeBV_TESE.pdf: 2712429 bytes, checksum: e36f2f20584ff831e3b273c75e68c7f8 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-04-05 / The accomplished researches in the education field focus on the importance of the accomplishment of actions involved in the analysis of the needs to graduate teachers as a way to adequate to socialcultural changing that require more and more a creative activity to prepare teachers in their graduation perspective. The worry with a fail at school linked to public school students lead us to make this thesis which goals are: investigate the needs of the graduation of teachers at public Elementary Schools concerning to the subjacent knowledge to the development of a pedagogic practice of alphabetizing with literacy and (re)create, with some teachers as active participants in the researches, knowledge regarding the process of alphabetization with literacy , based on the graduation of teachers. The study was accomplished in a municipal Elementary School in the Cear?-Mirim city, located in the state of Rio Grande do Norte, which offers both I and II levels of the Elementary School, 7 teachers and the principal of the school were subjects of our researches. The starting point was the needs of the graduation as subject phenomena, socially created and that allow people to be aware of the goals of a graduation. The investigative broach is qualitative, whose fundamental purpose is the understanding of the meanings, symbols, values and intentions of the mankind actions, as regards to other humanbeing and the contexts in which they interact. Within this context, we chose the investigation-action for we consider this kind of research a place for investigation and professional graduation, in which teachers and the researcher herself assume responsibility of problematizing, build the needs of graduation and think about their practices. As proceedings to create and analyze data, we developed participant observations during the activities in classroom; semi-structured interviews (individual and in groups) with teachers and the principal; analysis of documents and meetings at school for reflexive studies that enabled us to gather data in a pyramidal panoramic view and analyze the contents. The research revealed that the analysis of necessities to graduate teachers is a resource able to contribute to the planning of projects of keeping on graduating more properly, and thus create a critical and reflexive identity for teachers. This way, it was possible the graduation necessities could be revealed and also the knowledge of teachers as regards to alphabetization inserted in a perspective of literacy. Nowadays, conceptualized needs upon difficulties of teachers, there is a tendency to translate them into theorization of problems, without application to these knowledge of teachers, as well as their wishes for changing, especially when those needs are built to analyze and consider concrete practices. Therefore, the graduation experiences have enabled the abandon of a mechanical broach for teaching reading and writing. It has also lead teachers to assume a posture of providing their students the understanding about the reading and writing processes and their functions as social instruments. The graduation theme contents allowed the knowledge to conceive reading and writing in new perspectives, according to their social functions, so that they can improve the education with literacy quality. This theoretical construction has enabled us to understand and consider the necessities of the graduation as progressive process, and has given us the possibility of re-think our own learning processes at the university and review the pedagogical practices of public school teachers. Our conclusion is that once teachers consider their own graduation needs, it contributes to change their concepts and practices in education and literacy, even though there used to be many difficulties in their graduation and organization of the pedagogical work / As pesquisas realizadas na ?rea de educa??o t?m atentado para a import?ncia da realiza??o de a??es voltadas para a an?lise de necessidades formativas como forma de ajuste ?s mudan?as s?cioculturais que exigem cada vez mais uma atividade criadora na prepara??o dos professores na perspectiva da sua forma??o. A preocupa??o com o fracasso escolar ligado ? alfabetiza??o de crian?as que frequentam a escola p?blica nos levou ? constru??o desta tese que tem como objetivos: investigar necessidades de forma??o de professores do Ensino Fundamental da escola p?blica acerca de conhecimentos subjacentes ao desenvolvimento de uma pr?tica pedag?gica de alfabetiza??o na perspectiva do letramento e (re)construir, com os professores participantes da pesquisa, conhecimentos relativos ao processo de alfabetizar letrando , a partir de suas necessidades de forma??o. O estudo foi realizado em uma escola municipal da cidade de Cear?- Mirim-RN, que oferece Ensino Fundamental I e II, contando com a participa??o de 7 professores e uma supervisora dessa institui??o, sujeitos de nossa pesquisa. Partimos do princ?pio de que as necessidades de forma??o s?o fen?menos subjetivos, socialmente constru?dos que permitem a tomada de consci?ncia dos objetivos para a forma??o. A abordagem investigativa ? de natureza qualitativa, cuja premissa fundamental ? a compreens?o dos significados, valores, inten??es que os seres humanos colocam em suas a??es, em rela??o com os outros e com os contextos em que interagem. Nesse contexto, optamos pela investiga??o-a??o por considerarmos esse tipo de pesquisa como um espa?o, tanto de investiga??o, quanto de forma??o profissional, em que professores e pesquisadora assumem, conjuntamente, a responsabilidade de problematizar, construir necessidades de forma??o e refletir as suas pr?ticas. Como procedimentos de constru??o e an?lise dos dados, desenvolvemos observa??es participantes nas atividades de sala de aula; entrevistas semiestruturadas (individuais e coletivas) com professores e supervisora; an?lise de documentos escolares e sess?es de estudos reflexivos que possibilitaram a triangula??o dos dados e a an?lise de conte?do. O percurso de pesquisa revelou que a an?lise de necessidades formativas dos professores ? um recurso capaz de contribuir para o planejamento de projetos de forma??o cont?nua mais apropriados ? constru??o da sua identidade cr?tica e reflexiva. Neste sentido, permitiu que fossem constru?das/reveladas necessidades de forma??o e a constru??o de conhecimentos dos professores em rela??o ? alfabetiza??o na perspectiva do letramento. As necessidades conceitualizadas a partir das dificuldades dos professores, das car?ncias percebidas e dos desejos de mudan?a manifestados por eles, quando s?o constru?das na an?lise e reflex?o de pr?ticas concretas, tendem a traduzir-se em teoriza??o de problemas, sem uma dimens?o de aplica??o de saberes. Desse modo, as viv?ncias do processo formativo est?o possibilitando a reflex?o das pr?ticas de ensino da leitura e da escrita e a assun??o de posturas mais voltadas para propiciar aos alunos condi??es de entendimento, compreens?o e uso social dos escritos e da fun??o do sistema de escrita. Os conte?dos tem?ticos da forma??o permitiram o acesso ao conhecimento de novas formas de conceber e trabalhar com a leitura e a escrita e suas fun??es sociais e saltos qualitativos dos professores com rela??o ? pr?tica de alfabetizar letrando. Essa constru??o te?rica nos possibilitou: conhecer e refletir necessidades de forma??o no ?mbito da forma??o continuada de professores; ressignificar nossa pr?pria forma??o e revisitar a nossa pr?tica como formadora de professores que atuam na escola p?blica. Conclu?mos com a confirma??o de que a reflex?o dos professores sobre as suas pr?prias necessidades de forma??o contribuiu para transforma??es de suas concep??es e pr?ticas de alfabetiza??o e letramento, mesmo diante de dificuldades encontradas, tanto na forma??o, quanto na organiza??o do trabalho pedag?gico

Esta tese situa-se na fronteira das tensões entre regulação social e emancipação social entendidas no debate geral das políticas de educação superior. Tais políticas estão vinculadas às estratégias de inserção da economia nas grandes transformações que vêm ocorrendo na base produtiva do capitalismo em âmbito mundial. Nesse contexto são instaurados programas de avaliação institucional que podem alterar os modelos de curso e de IES com o intuito de atender aos interesses da sociedade e do capital. Neste âmbito situa-se o objetivo desta tese - investigar os efeitos e as mudanças promovidas pelos processos de avaliação institucional externa nos modelos de universidade. A revisão de literatura destacou as concepções clássicas e contemporâneas de universidade e suas influências na construção de tipos, formatos e modelos de IES. Estudou-se também a agenda política dos organismos internacionais (Banco Mundial e UNESCO) com ênfase no binômio diferenciação e diversificação bem como a agenda dos processos de internacionalização e transnacionalização da Educação Superior influentes sobre os modelos das instituições contemporâneas. Igualmente fazem parte do corpo teórico que sustenta esta tese os modelos de avaliação existentes na literatura e seus enfoques político-filosóficos: liberalismo, fenomenologia e socialismo sem fim. O estudo metodológico de caráter exploratório e descritivo incluiu dados, fatos e fenômenos, que constituíram dois estudos de caso relativos a avaliações externas de dois cursos de graduação, um Curso de Medicina de universidade confessional do Brasil e um Curso de Microbiologia de universidade confessional de Portugal. Para elaborar os estudos de caso foram coletados depoimentos orais através de entrevistas in locu, analisados documentos e legislação dos dois países. As informações obtidas permitem apontar exemplos de mudanças resultantes das avaliações tanto na IES brasileira quanto na IES portuguesa. Aponta-se que os enfoques de avaliação externa vivenciados por estas IES, na sua época e contexto, alteraram o status da IES no caso brasileiro e o perfil do curso no caso português. Em ambas as instituições foram introduzidas melhorias nos cursos decorrentes das recomendações dos processos avaliativos externos. / This thesis is situated on the border tensions between social regulation and social emancipation understood in the general debate of the policies of Higher Education. Such policies are linked to the strategies of integration of the economy in major transformations occurring in the productive base of capitalism on the world level. In this context are instituted programs of institutional evaluation that may change the models of courses and IES in order to meet the interests of society and capital. In this area lies the aim of this thesis – investigate the effects and changes promoted by the external procedures of evaluation on the institutional models of university. A review of the literature highlighted the conceptions of classical and contemporary university and its influences in the construction of types, formats and models of IES. It also studied the political agenda of international organizations (the World Bank and UNESCO) with emphasis on binomial differentiation and diversification as well as the agenda of processes of internationalization and transnationalization of Higher Education influential on the contemporary models of institutions. Also part of the body that supports this thesis are the theoretical models of evaluation in literature and their political-philosophical approaches: liberalism, socialism and phenomenology without end. The methodological study of exploratory and descriptive character includes data, facts and phenomena, which constitute two studies of case concerning external evaluations of two graduation courses, a Medicine graduation course of a confessional university of Brazil and a Microbiology graduation course of a confessional university of Portugal. For the preparation of the case studies were collected through interviews oral testimony in locu, examined documents and legislation of the two countries. The information obtained allow to point examples of changes resulting from evaluation in both IES, Brazilian and Portuguese. It indicates that the external evaluation approaches experienced by these IES, in its time and context, changed the status of IES in the Brazilian case and the profile of the course in the Portuguese case. In both institutions improvements in courses have been introduced arising from recommendations of the external evaluation processes.

Published Article / The Council on Higher Education (CHE) (2004) states that graduation rates across all provider types of MBA qualifications in South Africa are not very high. Various studies have reported that, in order to address poor throughput rates, one of the important aspects that needs to be addressed, is the criteria used to select students. The purpose of this study was to identify valid predictors and measures of the academic performance of MBA students. Multiple regression analysis was used to determine the significance of different competencies and aptitudes in predicting academic success. The sample consisted of 135 MBA students from a South African School of Management. The results show that certain aptitudes and competencies, namely numerical aptitude, personal motivation, verbal aptitude, and resilience, contributed statistically significant to academic success.

One method by which student success or failure is measured is whether or not students graduate or dropout. The current educational policy, No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, aims to close the achievement gap among different ethnic groups. Despite these goals, American Indian students have the highest dropout rate and lowest graduation rate in the country. For well over a century, federal educational policy has failed to meet the educational needs of American Indian students. This research project shows the need for perspectives to change in terms of "dropping out" and "graduating" in order to address and improve the success rates for Native American students in K-12 public schools. This thesis focuses on urban Native American student schooling experiences, calling for a need to avoid labeling students and for schools to place a greater emphasis on building positive interpersonal relationships with students and families.

High schools in the United States are facing increased scrutiny to increase the number of students graduating with a diploma in four years. This pressure comes from many sources. First, the No Child Left Behind Act instituted graduation as a measure of a high school’s success at the federal level. States soon followed by increasing accountability in this area. Differences in how graduation rates were measured and advancements in data tracking technology led to many states measuring cohort groups of students who enter high school in the ninth grade and tracking them to see how many graduate in four years. This measure became known as an on-time graduation rate and, in many states, became a measure used to determine high schools’ accreditation. School districts responded to these changes in accountability by instituting new programs designed to increase graduation rates and decrease the number of students dropping out. One type of program that has increased in popularity across the country is the online credit recovery program. Online credit recovery programs utilize an asynchronous online learning platform that is designed for students who are repeating a course they failed in a traditional classroom setting. Features of an online credit recovery program include a one-to-one learning environment where students interact with digital curriculum that includes text, audio, video, and graphic information. Online credit recovery courses are designed so that students can demonstrate mastery of known content quickly and focus on material they did not master the first time they took the course. This instructional approach, along with the asynchronous design that allows students to work through course content at their own pace, enables students to earn a course credit in a reduced period of time. The purpose of the current study was to capture the perceptions of students who are enrolled in an online credit recovery program. The goal of the study to document what factors they believed contributed to their success. The study was driven by research questions which sought to analyze the (1) factors students attributed to their success in the online credit recovery program, (2) perceived chances of graduating from high school on-time after successfully completing the course, (3) relationship between the credit recovery course and the one-to-one laptop computing initiative supported by the school district, and (4) online learning environment of the credit recovery program, as compared to a traditional classroom setting. A qualitative, phenomenological, design was used to explore the research questions. Twenty retained ninth grade students were interviewed. Ten came from each of the two schools that first implemented the online credit recovery program in the school district. The researcher inductively coded these interviews which allowed themes to emerge through the voices of these students. These themes included a sense of control of the learning environment in the online credit recovery program that students did not feel in a regular classroom. This control was manifested by the self-paced, distraction-free, learning environment that was enhanced by the district’s one-to-one laptop computing initiative. Also, increased and varied opportunities to demonstrate mastery fostered this sense of control. Another major theme that emerged is that students believed that their chances to graduate on-time were improved because they were able to earn a credit in a course quickly that they had previously failed. The ability to recovery this credit allowed students to avoid traditional credit recovery options in which they felt they would not be successful. Students also perceived that they would continue to experience success if they were allowed to take other courses through the online credit recovery program.