The Potential of Advanced Placement to Improve College Outcomes and Narrow Racial/Ethnic and Socioeconomic Disparities

The U.S. economy requires a highly educated workforce, yet too few black, Latino, and low-income students attend, persist, and graduate from college. The present study examines the college outcomes of participants in a model Advanced Placement® (AP) intervention to shed light on its effectiveness and determine whether improving AP participation and performance is a promising strategy for closing persistent racial/ethnic and socioeconomic disparities in college outcomes. Findings suggest the college outcomes of program participants are better than those of similar students statewide while also highlighting variation within and across subgroups. At the same time, they confirm that AP participation and performance predict college outcomes and suggest that improving AP participation and performance among low-income white, black, and Latino students could be a useful strategy for closing persistent racial/ethnic and socioeconomic disparities in college outcomes.

Mobilizing Developmental Education: The Causal Effect of Mobile App Courseware on the College Outcomes of Developmental Education Students

Developmental education, in which college students deemed unprepared for college-level coursework enroll in non-credit-bearing courses, is widespread in American higher education. This study evaluates the effect of mobile app courseware on the college outcomes of developmental education students. We used a research design that randomly assigned course sections to receive access to the apps or not. The results show that access to the apps significantly improved student performance in developmental education outcomes and marginally improved medium-term college persistence and performance but did not affect credential attainment in the study timeframe. Despite a number of barriers to implementation, the results suggest the intervention has the potential to improve the short-term outcomes of developmental education students in addition to being low-cost and scalable.

Time Poverty and Parenthood: Who Has Time for College?

Student parents are among the least likely student groups to complete college. Regression models were run using 2003–2019 American Time Use Survey data to explore time poverty among college students. Results indicate that students with children under 13 years had significantly less discretionary time and free time, spent significantly less time on their education, enrolled part-time at significantly higher rates, and spent significantly more time studying while simultaneously caring for children, compared with students without children under 13 years. The strength of these relationships was strongest when children were younger. Parents with children under 6 years, and mothers of children of all age-groups, had significantly higher time poverty than other groups, yet spent significantly more time on education after controlling for discretionary time, at the cost of significantly less free time for themselves. Results suggest that improving college outcomes for student parents may require consideration of time poverty.

Reading Abilities of Deaf College Students

Most research concerning the reading abilities of deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) learners has focused on children during the elementary school years and, less frequently, the middle school years. Recent research in several domains, however, has indicated that variables associated with better achievement among young DHH children (e.g., early access to language through deaf parents or cochlear implants) lose much or all of their predictive power by the time the learners reach college age. This chapter reviews research concerning reading comprehension of DHH college students in terms of standardized achievement scores, academic performance, and response to intervention. Relevant empirical research is limited in some areas and absent in others, but a variety of findings are available with regard to DHH college students’ learning from text, associations of reading with achievement in high school and college outcomes, and alternative methods of assessing reading abilities among older DHH learners.

Approaches to Vocational College Outcomes

The way in which research is conducted may be conceived in terms of the methods and procedures adopted to collect the data and draw conclusions from the data. The chapter discusses the research hypothesis, research design, research philosophy, research methods, target population, sample size, research instruments, instrument validity, and reliability. It also covers data collection procedure, data analysis techniques, ethical considerations, and results. The chapter reviewed relevant literature from related journals and books so as to develop and implement appropriate research methodology while keeping in mind the purpose of the study: to determine whether college resources and student engagement are linked with student learning outcomes in Kenya's higher vocational colleges. Resources were all input to a college that make learning favorable while student engagement were all educational purposive activities that bring about desirable outcomes and students satisfaction with college experience.