Many administrators and faculty within higher education institutions have grappled with identifying and employing effective strategies to facilitate student success and persistence. The current study focuses on assessing nontraditional students' self-efficacy beliefs and their perception of the orientation program at a 2-year continuing education program in a Caribbean nation. The study is important as the findings have the potential to increase nontraditional students' persistence and learning. Bandura's social cognitive theory and the theory of self-efficacy served as the theoretical frameworks of this sequential mixed-methods design study. The quantitative research questions examined the reported self-efficacy levels of 77 participants and nonparticipants in the orientation program. The qualitative research questions focused on 10 nontraditional students' perceptions of how the orientation program they participated in impacted their ability to complete and succeed in their course of study. A survey that combined 2 preestablished instruments was used in the quantitative phase and follow-up face-to-face interviews for the qualitative phase of the study. A ttest analysis showed no statistically significant difference between the self-efficacy of participants and nonparticipants in the focal orientation program. A pattern coding of the interviews revealed 5themes from the qualitative phase, ranging from nontraditional students' challenges to self-efficacy and persistence in the program. A policy recommendation in the form of a white paper was used to convey the findings of this study to the major stakeholders at the target institution. The recommendations from the study may contribute to positive social change as they can improve nontraditional students' performance, increase completion rates at the institution, and positively impact economic growth of the wider community.

The retention of nursing students remains a challenge in higher education, and the need for nurses in the United States is projected to increase. The purpose of this study was to investigate nursing student persistence in an associate degree program by examining differences in the presence of key social, environmental, and academic factors across 2 types of students: completers and non-completers of the 1st course in a registered nursing program. The study framework was based on Tinto's Student Integration Model and the Nursing Undergraduate Retention and Success Model, which identify key social, environmental, and academic factors as critical to student success. The Student Perception Appraisal survey, which consists of 27 items arranged into 5 subscales 'personal academic, environmental, institutional interaction, college facilities, and friend support' was administered to students enrolled in the 1st semester of a registered nursing program who were later assigned to a group based on course completion (n = 90 completers; n = 22 non-completers). An independent-samples t test revealed no statistically significant differences between the groups on the instrument subscale scores. Recommendations include further study with larger and more equivalent group sizes. Implications for social change include providing initial research findings and recommendations to the study site that may ultimately increase the number of nursing graduates to meet the ever-increasing demand for healthcare professionals.

This study filled a gap in the higher education literature regarding whether a relationship exists between students’ employment location on or off campus, students’ identification as either native or transfer, and academic success as measured by self-reported grades for full-time seniors between the ages of 20-23 who enrolled in urban colleges and universities. The researcher used the National Survey of Student Engagement survey to collect data. It was administered to students during the 2013 or 2014 administrations at urban colleges and universities, with the purpose of representing the senior cohorts of students at their college or university during the years of administration. The researcher performed a secondary data analysis of the survey responses to the National Survey of Student Experiences of senior students who fit the sampling criterion, with the permission of Indiana University Center for Postsecondary Research. The results showed that, for both native and transfer senior student cohorts, as work hours off campus increased, there was a decrease in self-reported grades. In contrast, both native and transfer students who worked on campus enjoyed higher self-reported grades, and students who worked on campus performed better academically than even those students who did not work at all. Finally, the researcher noted no significant difference between the senior native and transfer student populations’ experiences with employment location and grades.

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the impact of Same-Language Subtitles (SLS) on the subject-specific comprehension and the academic literacy levels of EAL students on the Vaal Triangle Campus of North-West University (NWU). Essentially, the study aimed to determine whether exposing students studying through English as an Additional Language (EAL) to subtitled lectures (live or recorded lectures) would help improve their comprehension of the academic content as well as their receptive academic literacy skills, compared to students who were not exposed to subtitled lectures. This study stems from the identification of an academic performance-related issue on the Vaal Triangle Campus of NWU. Indeed, campus statistics show that the throughput rate of EAL students remains low, and that these students‟ academic literacy levels are inadequate. In other words, EAL students on this campus are underachieving and seem to have difficulties in mastering academic English. Based on various studies that showed SLS to be a valuable tool in terms of learning and academic literacy, this study proposed to introduce SLS (both live via respeaking and offline) in the university classroom as a learning aid, thus optimising the time students spend in lectures. Very little information was available in South Africa on the impact of SLS on the subject-specific comprehension of EAL students in a tertiary academic context. Furthermore, it had been anticipated that a certain number of technical constraints were likely to be encountered during the empirical investigation. These two factors made it difficult to predict what other factors could influence the outcome of the study. As a result, the study was based on the principle of Action Research, a research method characterised by the fact that the research is carried out in as many cycles as may be necessary in order to achieve the optimal conditions for a specific intervention. Three cycles were necessary to reach the optimal design of the present study so that a confident conclusion could be made regarding the impact of SLS on comprehension and academic literacy. For each cycle, the intervention was carried out over an academic semester. In the first cycle, a test group composed of EAL first-year Economics students was exposed to live SLS via respeaking during class, while a control group (also composed of EAL first-year Economics students) attended the same class at a different time, without SLS. In the second cycle, the live SLS via respeaking were replaced with offline SLS. The intervention was taken out of the regular classes and was carried out in the context of practical revision classes scheduled specifically for the purpose of the intervention. The test group viewed subtitled videos of lectures, while the control group viewed videos without subtitles. After each viewing, all participants were required to complete a short comprehension test. This cycle was also conducted in first-year Economics. The basic design of the third cycle was similar to that of the second cycle, but for the fact that the intervention took place in the context of a Psychology module, which, unlike the Economics module, was taught without the lecturer making use of slides. After these three research cycles were completed, it could be concluded that offline SLS indeed have a positive impact on the subject-specific comprehension and the receptive academic literacy skills of EAL students in a tertiary academic context. This conclusion was supported by the following findings: 1. The first research cycle pointed towards a slight, but statistically insignificant benefit in terms of both comprehension and academic literacy. However, at this stage of the empirical investigation, the technical constraints made it difficult to draw a precise conclusion in that respect. 2. In the second research cycle, the SLS seem to have had a significant impact on the receptive academic literacy skills of the test group, compared to the control group. However, no such impact could be noted in terms of subject-specific comprehension. This was attributed to the presence of a confounding variable, namely slides used during the lectures. This once more made it impossible to draw a confident conclusion regarding the impact of SLS on comprehension. 3. The third research cycle made a more confident conclusion regarding the impact of SLS on subject-specific comprehension possible. Indeed, the results of the statistical analyses show that the test group performed significantly better in their semester test (covering the work done in all the recorded lectures) than the control group, which was not exposed to any videos at all. On the basis of these findings, it was concluded that SLS in their offline form have a positive impact on the subject-specific comprehension and the receptive academic literacy skills of EAL students in a tertiary academic context, specifically if the students are given sufficient time to get used to the mode. This study seems to indicate that the benefits of SLS for comprehension can be recorded provided that students are exposed to the intervention over a longer period of time. However, there may be further scope for refinement as far as this study is concerned. It is therefore important that the topic be investigated further. / MA, Language Practice, North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2012

Notre travail s'intéresse aux parcours de réussite scolaire des enfants français issus de l'immigration africaine subsaharienne. Cette recherche s'inscrit dans une démarche biographique et accorde une importance capitale au vécu scolaire des enfants d'immigrés pour comprendre leur scolarisation de l'intérieur. Nous nous intéressons à des réussites scolaires qui sont atypiques en ce qu'elles invalident la thèse du déterminisme comme cause des difficultés scolaires rencontrées par ces enfants et réfutent l'idée du sens commun qui enferme les enfants d'immigrés dans un inéluctable destin d'échec scolaire. Ainsi, nous avons recueilli les récits d'enfants français d'origine africaine subsaharienne pour percevoir l'éventuelle influence de leur origine ethnoculturelle dans leur réussite scolaire. À travers la biographisation de l'expérience de ces enfants français d'immigrés africains nous nous demandons si leur réussite scolaire est liée à leur ethnicité. Pour répondre à notre problématique nous inscrivons notre travail dans le cadre de la recherche biographique car ces enfants sont des êtres sociaux qui agissent dans et sur le monde et dont l'expérience peut permettre de comprendre les faits sociaux qui les concernent en tant que sujets sociaux. / Our work focuses on academic success of French students from the African subsaharan immigration. This research is part of a biographical approach and grant an utmostimportance on school experience of immigrant children in order to understand their enrollment within. We focus on the academic success that are atypical because they invalidate the argument of determinism as the cause of academic difficulties faced by those children and deny the idea that immigrant children are locked in an inevitable destiny of school failure. So we have collected the stories of French children of African subsaharan origin to analyse the possible influence of their ethnocultural origin in their academic success. Through biographisation of these French children of African immigrants experience. We wonder if their academic success is linked to their ethnicity. To answer our problem we put our work in the context of biographical research as those children are social beings who act in and on the world and whose experience can help to understand social facts which concern them as social subjects.

This study focuses in the students’ perception of self-regulation in learning as influenced by the teaching-learning-environment. The study was conducted at the University of Pretoria. The participants in the study were first year students registered for a second semester module in Educational Psychology in the faculty of education. The size of the sample was nine (22,5%) male students and 31 (77,5%) female students. At the time of participation, the participants had attended university for a period of at least six months and had written tests and one examination. The Interactive Qualitative Analysis (IQA) method as described by Northcutt and McCoy (2004) was used to elicit participants’ knowledge and experiences of the research phenomenon. The participants were expected to complete an instrument that required them to indicate the direction of three relationships between all combinations of the themes which were selected on the basis of literature review. The participants were required to indicate how they perceive the nature of relationships between themes that were developed by the researcher as associated with self-regulated learning in a system of cause and effect. The main findings of the study indicate that language of instruction and student personality are primary drivers that determine the academic success of the students. The two themes exert great influence on other themes that are involved in the teaching-learning environment. Academic success emerged as primary outcome which means that it is a theme that depends to a large extent on how the other themes that exist in the teaching-learning environment are structured. The findings of the study indicate that there is no significant difference that exists in the male and female participants’ perception of the factors that influence self-regulation in learning. In both sample primary drivers were language of instruction and students’ personality and the primary outcome was academic success. / Dissertation (MEd (Educational Psychology))--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Educational Psychology / unrestricted

Dieser Band dokumentiert die Konzepte, Maßnahmen und Ergebnisse von zwölf Projekten zur Steigerung des Studienerfolgs und zur Vermeidung von Studienabbrüchen an der Technischen Universität Dresden im Zeitraum von 2016 bis 2020. Ihre Spannweite reicht von digitalen, web- und datengestützten Ansätzen über beratungsorientierte, diagnostische und praxisbezogene Angebote bis hin zur Verbesserung der Sprach- und Schreibfertigkeiten, der Studierfähigkeit und der Wissensvermittlung. Im Mittelpunkt stehen immer die Studierenden mit ihren Ansprüchen, Bedarfen und Problemen. Das Buch richtet sich zum einen an in der Praxis Handelnde sowie Entscheidende im Bereich Studienerfolg in Studienberatungen, an Fakultäten, Hochschulen und in der Politik. Herausforderungen und Erfolge der Projekte werden im Einzelnen dargestellt und übergeordnete Erfolgsbedingungen herausgearbeitet, damit zukünftige Maßnahmen an der TU Dresden und an anderen Hochschulstandorten in Sachsen und bundesweit davon profitieren können. Neben den Projektbeschreibungen enthält der Band einen Überblick zum aktuellen Stand der Theorien des Studienerfolgs, ein aus verschiedenen Perspektiven aufgenommenes und detailliertes Bild der Studierenden der TU Dresden auf Grundlage quantitativ empirischer Analysen und am Ende einen Ausblick auf die Studienerfolgsstrategie der TU Dresden. Das Buch richtet sich zum anderen somit auch an Wissenschaftlerinnen und Wissenschaftler, Lehrende und Studierende der Hochschulund Bildungsforschung sowie der Erziehungswissenschaft und der Qualitätsforschung. Leserinnen und Leser erhalten die Gesamtbilanz einer universitätsweiten Kraftanstrengung. Die Bemühungen zur Steigerung des Studienerfolgs an der TU Dresden stehen aber nicht am Ende. Das vorliegende Buch ist eine Basispublikation für entsprechende Anstrengungen und liefert dahingehende Anregungen.:Christian Schäfer-Hock, Franziska Schulze-Stocker, Henriette Greulich Fünf Jahre Anstrengungen zur Steigerung des Studienerfolgs an der TU Dresden-3 Andreas Sarcletti Studienerfolg und Studienabbruch-21 Robert Pelz, Franziska Schulze-Stocker, Stephanie Gaaw Determinanten der Studienabbruchneigung von Studierenden-53 Christin Engel, Meinhardt Branig Vielfalt als Herausforderung für Studierende und Universitäten-83 Matthias Heinz, Helge Fischer, Robin Heitz, Marcus Breitenstein, Thomas Köhler Das Studienassistenzsystem gOPAL-119 Annegret Stark, Fritz Hoffmann Online-Vorbereitungskurse Mathematik und Physik-153 Marlen Dubrau, Jana Riedel, Corinna Lehmann Flexibles Studieren an der TU Dresden-167 Franziska Schulze-Stocker, Anne-Marie B. Gallrein, Cornelia Blum, Michael Rockstroh, Ariunaa Ishig PASST?! Partnerschaft · Studienerfolg · TU Dresden-189 Petra Kemter-Hofmann, Grit Schuster Übergänge gestalten – Erfolg sichern!-225 Julia Kuß, Anja Abdel-Haq, Anne Jacob, Theresia Zimmermann Entwicklung von Online-Self-Assessments für Studiengänge der Ingenieurwissenschaften an der TU Dresden-241 Constantino Grau Turuelo, Oscar Banos García, Cornelia Breitkopf thermoEint: E-Assessments for International Students in Mechanical Engineering-271 Alice Friedland, Kathleen Oehmichen Studienbegleitende Deutschkurse mit Fachbezug an der Technischen Universität Dresden im Rahmen des Projektes »DaF trifft MINT«-305 Katharina Gabel-Stransky Internationalisierung des Studiums und des Campus durch sprachlich-interkulturelles Lernen (Studi-SPRiNT)-329 Christina Schulz, Christiane Einmahl Praxis statt grauer Theorie-343 Isabell Gall, Anja Schanze, Beatrice Schlegel Mentoring-Tutoring-Coaching-365 Nina Melching Das Schreibzentrum der TU Dresden-393 Henriette Greulich Teils heiter, teils wolkig-427 Christian Schäfer-Hock, Franziska Schulze-Stocker, Henriette Greulich Was bleibt nach fünf Jahren?-441

Zu Beginn der zweiten Dekade nach der Jahrtausendwende war die Ausgangslage unbefriedigend: Wie auch an vielen anderen Hochschulen und Universitäten in Sachsen und bundesweit (Heublein, 2014; Heublein et al., 2017) brachen nach dem Urteil der Hochschulpolitik zu viele Studierende an der Technischen Universität Dresden ihr Studium vorzeitig ab. Die Quote der Absolvierenden war zu gering. Die Zahl der Exmatrikulationen ohne Abschluss lag 2015 bei 5.399 und war seit 2010 um rund 55 Prozent gestiegen. Die Regelstudienzeit hielt im Durchschnitt nur ein knappes Viertel der Studierenden ein. Lediglich 60 Prozent der Studierenden gingen regelmäßig zu ihren Vorlesungen, mehr als die Hälfte hatten nach eigenen Angaben zu wenig Freizeit, nur fünf Prozent lasen immer ihre Pflichtlektüre. Die Zahl der Beratungsanfragen in der Studienberatung nahm von Jahr zu Jahr zu (TU Dresden, 2015a; Strahringer & Friedrich, 2015; Degen, Flämig, In der Au, Raese & Stiemer, 2011; Krempkow, König & Ellwardt, 2006; Klein & Stocké, 2016; SMWK, 2016a). [Aus der Einleitung]

In den 1950er-Jahren studierte nur ein sehr geringer Teil der Bevölkerung. So gab es 1951 in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland und West-Berlin insgesamt etwa 109.000 Studierende (Verband deutscher Studentenwerke, 1952). Im Wintersemester 2018/19 hingegen gab es (in Gesamtdeutschland) rund 2.864.000 Studierende, davon etwa 2.470.000 Studierende (86 Prozent) mit deutscher Staatsangehörigkeit (Statistisches Bundesamt, 2019). Nicht nur zwischen den 1950er-Jahren und dem Beginn des 21. Jahrhunderts ist die Studierneigung in starkem Maße gestiegen, sondern auch in den letzten 15 Jahren erfolgte ein weiterer deutlicher Anstieg. Im Jahr 2005 nahmen in Deutschland etwas mehr als ein Drittel (36,1 Prozent) eines Altersjahrgangs ein Studium auf. Seit 2012 liegt der Anteil kontinuierlich bei etwas mehr als der Hälfte, 2017 beispielweise bei 51,8 Prozent (Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung, 2019), sodass inzwischen die Aufnahme eines Studiums der »Normalfall« des Bildungswegs junger Menschen ist. Zu beachten ist allerdings, dass – bedingt durch Studienabbrüche – bisher (noch) nicht die Mehrheit eines Altersjahrgangs einen Studienabschluss erreicht. Zwar hängt die Wahrscheinlichkeit junger Menschen, ein Studium aufzunehmen, stark von der sozialen Herkunft und dem Migrationsstatus ab, aber auch in Deutschland gibt es bezüglich dieser Merkmale eine gewisse Heterogenität. Kern des vorliegenden Beitrags ist die Frage nach den Theorien zum Studienerfolg und zum Studienabbruch (Abschnitt 3). Untersuchungen dazu sollten immer theoriebasiert erfolgen, weil nur so die Erklärungskraft der einzelnen Ansätze überprüft werden und ein systematischer Erkenntnisfortschritt erreicht werden kann. Nach Möglichkeit sollten es die erhobenen Daten in der konkreten Erforschung erlauben, mehr als einen theoretischen Ansatz empirisch zu testen, um auch Theorien gegeneinander testen zu können. Zum Abschluss des Beitrags werden (Abschnitt 4) die Erkenntnisse des Beitrags zusammengefasst. [Aus der Einleitung]

Der vorliegende Artikel untersucht, welche Determinanten Studierende ausgewählter Studiengänge der Technischen Universität Dresden (TU Dresden) dazu bewegen, das Verlassen ihres aktuellen Studiengangs in Betracht zu ziehen. Dafür wurde im Rahmen des PASST?!-Programms1 eine quantitative Befragung durchgeführt. Das PASST?!-Programm ist ein Projekt der TU Dresden zur Steigerung des Studienerfolgs, welches als Frühwarnsystem durchgeführt wird und präventiv angelegt ist. Das Besondere an diesem Programm ist die Verbindung des Frühwarnsystems mit einer passgenauen Beratung und einer wissenschaftlichen Begleitung. [Aus der Einleitung]