Latino students in the United States face significant challenges including very high student dropout rates and difficulties finding support for student academic success. This research focuses on Latino students who are successful despite these many challenges and explores how these successful students describe their experiences in school. Three successful Latino high school students describe their pathways toward academic achievement in this ethnography, which takes a narrative approach. The student stories illustrate the influence of families, peers, schools, and the interplay between ethnic and academic identity as relevant to how students achieve success. Although these students articulate very different experiences, supports and challenges, all of the students are successful in school, which encourages a reexamination of the ways schools and communities can support minority student success.

Magister Commercii (Industrial Psychology) - MCom(IPS) / Working students encounter challenges and responsibilities at university and work. In attempting to study the books and chapters assigned, meet assignment deadlines, take part in extracurricular activities and function at work, working students may be overwhelmed sensing inadequate time to complete all their responsibilities. These may lead to certain negative outcomes for the working student, such as languishing, poor grades, taking longer than the expected time to complete studies or, in the worse scenario, quitting their studies. The primary aim of this study was to examine and understand the influence of non-cognitive factors (including PsyCap, time management, and grit) on flourishing and the working students’ intention to quit employing correlational and hierarchical regression analysis.

This study investigated the social factors affecting female Hispanic transfer students. The importance of the study relates to the relatively low graduation rates for this population and the fact that the Hispanics represent the fastest growing segment of the population in California. This study explored the topic through qualitative inquiry leading to the formation of a grounded theory. The population was limited to female Hispanic students under the age of 30, who transferred from a local 2 year college, and who applied for graduation. There were two groups: (a) neither parent attended college, and (b) at least one parent attended college. Data collection occurred in three stages: (a) collection and review of demographic data, (b) rating importance of involvement factors, and (c) guided questions to facilitate opportunity for discovery. The most universal finding was that family was their most influential social connection regarding support to attend and graduate from college. This finding was true irrespective of parental educational level. Most of the students felt their experience at the 2 year college was an extension of high school . All of the students had at least some fear about transferring and all of the students held down jobs while attending college. Each student had very a different experience in this process. This led the researcher to caution college and university decision makers to be careful not to oversimplify solutions to this issue. Faculty support was found to be particularly important in this study because the time students did spend on campus was almost exclusively in the classroom. This confirmed that faculty provides a key opportunity for individual attention and support for persisting to graduation. Other researchers should further examine the concept of the Three Connections in Social Integration : (a) personal connections, (b) extra curricular connections, and (c) academic connections. Examine the concept of the Five Stages to Graduation : (a) early experiences, (b) decision to attend the 2 year college, (c) the 2 year college experience, (d) transition, and (e) the 4 year college experience.

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The research purpose was to investigate the relationship between motivation (i.e., Physiological needs, safety and security, belonging, esteem, and self-actualization) determined through the Need Satisfactory Inventory (NSI), gender (i.e., Male, Female) determined through the demographic survey, and the test score on the Illinois Nurse Aide Competency Examination (INACE), i.e., overall INACE performance and overall INACE performance based on six duty areas (i.e., communicating information, performing basic nursing skills, performing personal care, performing basic restorative skills, providing mental health-services, and providing for resident’s rights) of nurse aide students. The study explored the relationship between variables using a non-experimental, associational, and descriptive approach. All the research questions and hypotheses explored the relationship between variables (i.e., motivation and multiple-choice INACE performance) concerning the mean of overall INACE performance and means of INACE performance based on six duty areas using associational inferential statistics (Pearson correlation coefficient r). Keywords: Motivation, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, Academic Achievement, Nurse Aide Students, Standardized Multiple-Choice Academic Test, Multiple Choice Questions, Academic Success, and Academic Performance

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No description available.

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Persistence is an important issue in higher education (Tinto, 1987a). Although social and economic benefits of a college education are well documented (Baum & Ma, 2007; Institute for Higher Education Policy, 2004), during the last 100 years the college graduation rate has remained at approximately 50% (Education Policy Institute, 2004). While prior academic achievement has proven to be a successful predictor of success in college (Camara & Echtnernacht, 2000; Sadler, Cohen, & Kockesen, 1997; Tinto, 1993), it does not account for all the variability in student retention. Research has shown that other factors, including social adaptation, physical fitness, and emotional stability can contribute to whether an individual continues to persist past the first year of college (Astin, 1993; McClanahan, 2004; Tinto, 1987b). The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between self-reported wellness and academic success in first-year health science college students. In addition the study sought to determine if the relationship between wellness and academic success differs by gender, academic program, or ethnicity. Also examined was whether the factors of wellness could be used to predict academic success. Wellness was defined using the Myers and Sweeney (2005) conceptual framework, as measured in a series of constructs, including the coping self, creative self, essential self, physical self, social self and an overall wellness score. Academic success was defined as first semester grade point average. The study also controlled for high school grade point average (HSGPA) and scholastic aptitude test score (SAT) as factors of prior academic achievement that may affect academic success in college. The findings suggest that the impact of wellness differs by ethnicity and academic program. In addition, certain factors of wellness can be used to help predict academic success in the first semester of college. Finally, overall wellness had little if any bearing on academic success in first-time, first-year students. / Ph. D.

Due to immigration the non-Hispanic White population continues to decrease and the population continues to change in regard to the ethnic and racial make-up. As these demographic changes take place higher education institutions will face increasing pressure from stakeholders to create environments that facilitate degree completion among mounting numbers of populations who are at risk in terms of academic success. First generation status denotes one group of students who are at risk in terms of persistence towards a bachelor's degree. The purpose of this study was to examine what factors predict the academic success of first year, full-time first generation students. Furthermore, this study examined whether there is a relationship between race, gender, financial need, and language ability and factors used to predict the academic success of first generation students. Factors were defined as variables measured by the 2002 Your First College Year Survey (YFCY) data (HERI, 2004a). Factors fell into five main areas: Student Background Characteristics, Agents of Socialization, Structural Characteristics, Institutional Environment, and Student Effort (Pascarella & Terenzini, 1991). The study was based on secondary analysis of the 2002 YFCY data provided by the Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles. A combination of descriptive statistics, factor analysis, and logistic regression was used for this study. Findings revealed there are significant differences between academically more successful FGs and FGs who are academically less successful in relation to three factors: Institutional Environment, Student Effort, and Agents of Socialization. FGs are more likely to experience academic success in regard to variables associated with the factor Institutional Environment. There is a greater likelihood FGs will be academically less successful in relation to variables associated with the factors Student Effort and Agents of Socialization. When considering demographic variables in relation to the three significant institutional factors, FGs who are Asian American are more likely to experience academic success. Alternatively, FGs have greater odds of being academically less successful if they are male, African American, Mexican American, and non-native speakers of English. / Ph. D.