INCREASING PERSISTENCE "Of all the books addressing the puzzle of student success and persistence, I found this one to be the most helpful and believe it will be extremely useful to faculty and staff attempting to promote student success. The authors solidly ground their work in empirical research, and do a brilliant job providing both an overview of the relevant literature as well as research-based recommendations for intervention." GAIL HACKETT, PH.D., provost and executive vice chancellor for academic affairs; professor, counseling and educational psychology, University of Missouri, Kansas City Research indicates that approximately forty percent of all college students never earn a degree anywhere, any time in their lives. This fact has not changed since the middle of the 20th century. Written for practitioners and those who lead retention and persistence initiatives at both the institutional and public policy levels, Increasing Persistence offers a compendium on college student persistence that integrates concept, theory, and research with successful practice. It is anchored by the ACT's What Works in Student Retention (WWISR) survey of 1,100 colleges and universities, an important resource that contains insights on the causes of attrition and identifies retention interventions that are most likely to enhance student persistence.?? The authors focus on three essential conditions for student success: students must learn; students must be motivated, committed, engaged, and self-regulating; and students must connect with educational programs consistent with their interests and abilities. The authors offer a detailed discussion of the four interventions that research shows are the most effective for helping students persist and succeed: assessment and course placement, developmental education initiatives, academic advising, and student transition programming. Finally, they urge broadening the current retention construct, providing guidance to policy makers, campus leaders, and individuals on the contributions they can make to student success.

Gender inequalities in education – in terms of systematic variations in access to educational institutions, in competencies, school marks, and educational certificates along the axis of gender – have tremendously changed over the course of the 20th century. Although this does not apply to all stages and areas of the educational career, it is particularly obvious looking at upper secondary education. Before the major boost of educational expansion in the 1960s, women’s participation in upper secondary general education, and their chances to successfully finish this educational pathway, have been lower than men’s. However, towards the end of the 20th century, women were outperforming men in many European countries and beyond. The international contributions to this book attempt to shed light on the mechanisms behind gender inequalities and the changes made to reduce this inequality. Topics explored by the contributors include gender in science education in the UK; women’s education in Luxembourg in the 19th and 20th century; the ‘gender gap’ debates and their rhetoric in the UK and Finland; sociological perspectives on the gender-equality discourse in Finland; changing gender differences in West Germany in the 20th century; the interplay of subjective well-being and educational attainment in Switzerland; and a psychological perspective on gender identities, gender-related perceptions, students’ motivation, intelligence, personality, and the interaction between student and teacher gender. This book was originally published as a special issue of Educational Research.

Powerful behavioral interventions to help your students succeed Behavioral problems can disrupt learning for the whole classroom if not managed properly, which is often a matter of frustrating trial and error. This must-have guide delivers a set of fifteen practical intervention techniques that can be applied to virtually any situation in both pull-out and inclusive classrooms. Backed by research and case studies, each chapter is brief and to the point with a focus on one behavioral intervention technique. Insights include: Incorporating student interests in classroom activities Understanding the reason the student is misbehaving to plan an appropriate intervention Understanding how stimulation impacts performance