Educational Degree Attainment Research Articles

Mental health, gender, and higher education attainment

We compared the mental health of higher education students with that of nonstudents. Moreover, we examined whether the mental health of students predicts their probability of obtaining a higher education degree, and whether the extent to which mental health affects educational attainment varies by gender. Drawing on a risk and resilience framework, we considered five facets of mental health that may be implicated in distinct ways in the educational attainment process: positive attitude towards life, self-esteem, self-efficacy, negative affectivity, and perceived stress. We used data from a nationally representative panel study from Switzerland (Nstudents = 2070, 42.8% male; Nnonstudents = 3755, 45.9% male). The findings suggest that overall, the mental health of higher education students was relatively similar to that of nonstudents, although students exhibited slightly higher self-esteem, slightly weaker self-efficacy, greater negative affectivity, and higher levels of perceived stress. The effects of different facets of mental health on higher education degree attainment were mostly statistically and/or practically insignificant. However, positive attitudes towards life had a substantial positive effect on the probability of being awarded a higher education degree. Mental health was equally important for male and female students’ educational attainment.

Postsecondary Teacher Quality and Student Achievement in Florida's Career Certificate Programs Using a Causal-Comparative Study

Teacher quality and student achievement have shown positive relationships in prior studies of elementary and secondary grade levels in the United States. However, postsecondary career and technical education (CTE) teacher quality and student achievement is an understudied topic. According to the literature, teacher quality is measured by pedagogical knowledge, level of education, and professional development. For postsecondary CTE teachers, occupational experience is a hiring requirement for teacher quality. Student achievement is measured by test scores and graduation rates. Postsecondary career certificate programs usually have a summative evaluation with an industry-specific certification test, which assesses the student's employability in the program's field of study by industry standards. The purpose of this retrospective causal-comparative study was to examine the relationship between postsecondary CTE teacher quality and student achievement in Florida's career certificate programs. An online survey was conducted with 203 postsecondary CTE teachers in Florida. Findings revealed a statistically significant positive relationship between the level of pedagogical knowledge and educational degree attainment of postsecondary CTE teachers and students' passing an industry certification test. This finding is consistent with prior studies in K-12 grade levels. Recommendations include increasing the pedagogical knowledge and educational degree attainment of postsecondary CTE teachers to improve student learning outcomes.

Elementary teachers’ mathematical beliefs and mathematics anxiety: How do they shape instructional practices?

AbstractThis quantitative study investigated the relationships among practicing elementary teachers’ (N = 153) beliefs about mathematics and its teaching and learning, mathematics anxiety, and instructional practices in mathematics. When viewed singly, the findings reveal the teachers with higher levels of mathematics anxiety tend to use less standards‐based instruction and those with beliefs oriented toward a problem‐solving view of mathematics reported more standards‐based teaching. A combined analysis shows that after controlling for mathematical beliefs, teaching longevity, and educational degree attainment, there is no relationship between teachers’ mathematics anxiety and instructional practices. These findings suggest a spurious relationship between anxiety and practices, with beliefs having the strongest relationship with practices. Several suggestions for positively influencing the mathematical beliefs and affect in general of elementary teachers while learning mathematics are offered.

Student perceptions of effective instruction and the development of critical thinking: a replication and extension

This study utilized data from the Wabash National Study of Liberal Arts Education to test the robustness of research conducted by Pascarella et al. (J Coll Stud Dev 37:7–19, 1996) that explored the relationship between student perceptions of exposure to organized and clear instruction and growth in critical thinking skills among college freshmen. To accomplish this, we created fully-specified models that included statistical controls for an array of potential confounding influences such as, student race, sex, pre-college critical thinking ability, pre-college tested academic ability, parental educational degree attainment, pre-college academic motivation, and a measure of interaction with high school teachers. Net of these influences, our findings generally replicate those uncovered by Pascarella et al. (J Coll Stud Dev 37:7–19, 1996) which suggest that student perceptions of organized instruction are positively associated with gains in critical thinking. Perceptions of instructional clarity, however, failed to exert a statistically significant influence on the dependent variable. Lastly, the results of our analyses suggest the effect of student perceptions of organized instruction on critical thinking affects students similarly, regardless of tested academic preparation (ACT or equivalent score), sex, or pre-college critical thinking levels.

Forward and backward, horizontal and vertical: Transformation of occupational credentialing in the schooled society

Underdeveloped theory about educational credentialing flies in the face of the immense practice of educational degree attainment by ever increasing proportions of each new generation, and the ensuing pervasive belief in the power of degrees to both allocate individuals in the labor market and to serve as job requirements throughout the occupational structure. Considering educational credentialing at the center of the educational revolution in postindustrial society, a new theoretical argument is developed from the premise that education as an institution provides the logic by which educational credentialing becomes evermore legitimate, more so than from forces outside the institution itself such as the economy and labor market demand. In support of the proposed theory of credentialing, multiple sets of new findings about education, occupations, and work show that the common negative notion of run-away educational credentialism does not fit empirical trends. Second, as a function of widely held beliefs about education in postindustrial society, four institutional processes by which educational credentialing has deeply integrated into the occupational structure are described and illustrated with empirical observations and analyses. Lastly, consequences of the rapid and robust educational transformation of occupational credentialing for future sociological inquiry into social stratification and mobility are discussed.

Influences on the Educational Degree Attainment of Two-Year College Students

With increasing numbers of students enrolling at two-year colleges, it is clear that additional research is needed to understand and predict the persistence behavior of this group of students. The central purpose of this study was to examine the effects of students' backgrounds, academic and social integration, external influences, and institutional satisfaction on the educational degree attainment of students who began their college experience at two-year colleges. The findings of this study are consistent with previous research and confirm the relationship of college academic activities and college grade point average with student persistence. Students' willingness to re-enroll in their freshman college was also found to positively influence educational degree attainment.

Self-concept development and educational degree attainment

The present study explores changes in the academic, social, and artistic self-concept of college students over a nine-year period. While the findings demonstrate a positive relationship between the educational degree attainment levels of students and their formation of a more healthy self-concept, the findings further indicate that the relationship is not consistent for males and females. In general, the findings suggest that the collegiate experience does not diminish self-concept gender differences that exist at the time of matriculation. The degree to which changes in students' self-concept is related to selected aspects of their collegiate experience and characteristics of their undergraduate institutions is also explored. The findings indicate that changes in students' self-concept is related to their level of social and academic integration during their undergraduate careers and to the size and selectivity of colleges they attend. The implications of these findings for enhancing students' self-concept during the college years are discussed.