Postsecondary Participation Research Articles

Rurality and Resources: Influence of High School and Individual Characteristics on Postsecondary Participation

This study explores a cohort of rural high school student's participation in postsecondary education within three years of graduation. We use the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) 's High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 (HSLS2009) and logistic regression to answer our research questions. We found that many rural students plan to attend college and even apply to college; however, this did not mean that students would attend college. Also, counselors spending 20-50 percent of their time on college support positively affected students' college enrollment.

Can information and advising affect postsecondary participation and attainment for military personnel? Evidence from a large‐scale experiment with the U.S. Army

AbstractDespite generous financial aid, military veterans have high rates of undermatch and generally poor postsecondary outcomes. We conducted a large‐scale, multi‐arm field experiment with the U.S. Army to investigate whether personalized information about postsecondary options and access to advising affects service members’ postsecondary choices and outcomes. We find no impact of the intervention on whether or where veterans enroll in college or on their college persistence. These results suggest that light touch strategies that have been effective at addressing similar challenges among traditional students, and which we modified for the military context, are not sufficient to improve veterans’ postsecondary outcomes.

Short report: Initial pilot of a brief career development program for autistic young adults

BackgroundMany autistic young adults may struggle to progress to further education or employment after high school, highlighting the need for tailored career development programs. If provided with the proper resources and support, the obstacles faced by autistic youth in pursuing post-secondary activities may decrease. AimsThis pilot study aimed to examine the feasibility and preliminary efficacy of a brief career development program consisting of a strengths and challenges intervention paired with a 12-week workshop intervention. Methods and proceduresWe studied the participants' changes in confidence and participation in pursuing post-secondary activities using a series of questionnaires in 20 participants, ages 16–23. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and Strong Interest Inventory (SII) helped the participants choose a post-secondary path. The 1–9 Vocational Index Scale measured post-secondary participation and hours working in a normed fashion. The Confidence Index Interval: Entering Workforce measured the participants’ perceived confidence related to career transition. Outcomes and resultsOur results suggested that a brief career development program paired with a strengths and challenges intervention significantly increased post-secondary involvement in autistic young adults (N = 20, p = 0.014). There were no significant changes in confidence. Conclusions and implicationsThese findings provide proof of concept of a brief career development program using the MBTI and SII in young adults with ASD. What this paper addsResearch in career development and transition for autistic young adults reveals that career interventions specific to the autistic population are lacking. Our pilot study explores a new type of intervention that incorporates the analysis of personal strengths and challenges with a 12-week transition workshop. Our project is the first to utilize the MBTI and SII as a tool to guide autistic youth in choosing a post-secondary path. The results of our study suggest that our program significantly improves post-secondary participation in autistic young adults. The findings provide proof of concept of using the MTBI and SII with a 12-week workshop for autistic young adults. At the end of our program, several participants began pursuing post-secondary education on track to obtain associate’s (N = 8) or bachelor’s (N = 3) degrees. Some began trade school (N = 3) and internships (N = 2), and others began employment or onboarding to employment (N = 4). Given the need for more evidence-based career interventions for autistic adults, our pilot study contributes significantly to autism research to better serve the autistic population.

A meta-analysis of the relations between parental support and children's career self-efficacy in South Korea and the US

South Korean vocational psychologists have studied the impact of parental support on children's career self-efficacy using theories validated in the US. However, there is little research examining whether theories developed in the US can be applied to South Korean population. As the cultural context is a critical factor that can shape the associations between parental support and children's career self-efficacy, we address this limitation through meta-analytic review. We located 2615 effect sizes from 147 South Korean studies, and 388 effect sizes from 54 US studies. By synthesizing and comparing these results, we found general support for our hypotheses. The relations between parental support and career self-efficacy were significant in both nations, from elementary through post-secondary students. In particular, the relations were stronger in South Korea for high school and post-secondary participants. Next, specific parental support behavior of emotional support and communicational support were found to have particularly strong impacts for South Korean participants. Financial support also showed a strong impact on career self-efficacy for South Korean participants, contrasting with the US participants. Finally, the relations between parental support and career self-efficacy declined across grade levels in both nations. This decline began during post-secondary education for South Korean sample, whereas it began during high school for the US sample. These findings suggest that there are culturally specific details necessary for understanding parental support and career self-efficacy in South Korea.

Divided Alliances: A Discussion of Inuit Resilience in Post-Secondary Education

Although the Inuit high school completion rate has been climbing, the same cannot be said for Inuit participation in post-secondary education in Canada. This paper seeks to move beyond the obvious physical, and financial barriers to explore the colonial biases present in post-secondary institutions as further and more enduring challenges to access for Inuit. Through conversations with 10 Inuit post-secondary participants, graduates, and leavers, seven critical factors emerged. Viewed from the perspective of Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit, these factors identified where institutions have continued to fail students. The hope here is to raise greater awareness of the unparalleled challenges Inuit must face when choosing to participate in post-secondary education not only in terms of leaving home, but also of negotiating culture and the worldviews of Southern colonial learning institutions.

Evaluating A.S.K. Gatekeeper Training: Supporting Mental Health in Post-Secondary Settings

This article describes the evaluation of the A.S.K. Gatekeeper Training Program which focuses on improving post-secondary participants’ ability to identify, reach out to, and support those experiencing mental health issues. Students at one Canadian college provided data at registration, prior to and following the intervention. Data from 105 matched surveys showed that prior to training participants held positive attitudes about those experiencing mental health issues but were uncertain of their abilities to assist. There was an improvement in their self-perceived confidence and skills following training. Further evaluation is needed to determine its effectiveness with other campus stakeholders, including those experiencing mental health issues.

Can Information and Advising Affect Postsecondary Participation and Attainment for Non-Traditional Students? Evidence from a Large-Scale Experiment with the U.S. Army

Can Information and Advising Affect Postsecondary Participation and Attainment for Non-Traditional Students? Evidence from a Large-Scale Experiment with the U.S. Army

Can Information and Advising Affect Postsecondary Participation and Attainment for Non-Traditional Students? Evidence from a Large-Scale Experiment with the U.S. Army

Can Information and Advising Affect Postsecondary Participation and Attainment for Non-Traditional Students? Evidence from a Large-Scale Experiment with the U.S. Army

Impact of Guided Notes on Graduate Student Retention of Facts

Guided notes are an instructional strategy used to help students retain facts, concepts, and skills. Evidence for the effectiveness of guided notes with school-aged children diagnosed with high incidence disabilities is well documented, but research with postsecondary participants has had mixed results, and there has been little to no research on the effects of guided notes in online learning environments. The present study sought to examine the effects of guided notes on the retention of facts in high achieving online graduate students. Results indicate statistical significance (p < .01) in performance with a medium effect size, and students preferred guided notes to assist with note taking during lectures.

College Attendance among Low-Income Youth: Explaining Differences across Wisconsin High Schools

Bolstering low-income students’ postsecondary participation is important to remediate these students’ disadvantages and to improve society’s overall level of education. Recent research has demonstrated that secondary schools vary considerably in their tendencies to send students to postsecondary education, but existing research has not systematically identified the school characteristics that explain this variation. Identifying these characteristics can help improve low-income students’ postsecondary outcomes. We identify relevant characteristics using population-level data from Wisconsin, a mid-size state in the United States. We first show that Wisconsin’s income-based disparities in postsecondary participation are wide, even net of academic achievement. Next, we show that several geographic characteristics of schools help explain between-secondary school variation in low-income students’ postsecondary outcomes. Finally, we test whether a dense set of school organisational features explain any remaining variation. We find that these features explain virtually no variation in secondary schools’ tendencies to send low-income students to postsecondary education.

Academic and post-secondary participation of students with ABI after the BrainSTEPS program

AbstractPurpose:To describe and analyze educational and post-high school participation of individuals who sustained an acquired brain injury (ABI) during childhood and participated in a state-wide school-based brain injury support program, BrainSTEPS in Pennsylvania (BrainSTEPS).Method:Retrospective analysis of programmatic information and data collected through electronic and phone surveys during a follow-up survey for a statewide, school-based, school consultation program for students with ABI.Participants:Caregivers reported on 190 individuals with ABI who participated in Pennsylvania’s BrainSTEPS Program.Results:Individuals post-ABI who participated in the BrainSTEPS were most likely to have experienced a mild ABI in high school due to sports. Post-injury, students were most likely to be enrolled in regular education, have graduated high school, pursued four-year college education and be attending post-secondary education and living with family. Additional significant relationships were not reported within the concussion or moderate-severe traumatic brain injury subgroups. Significant relationships for educational outcomes included higher likelihood of regular educational placement at the time of referral given an older grade at injury and regular educational placement before injury. For post-high school outcomes, a younger age at survey was associated with current attendance in post-secondary education, compared to other vocational options.Conclusions:Individuals with a history of ABI before school age and during primary and secondary education present with heterogeneous educational and post-high school outcomes. A greater breadth of measures of formal and informal educational and vocational supports and post-high school attainment should be implemented to accurately capture the needs and outcomes of these students to inform supports and services.

Patterns of early adult work and postsecondary participation among individuals with high-incidence disabilities: A longitudinal person-centered analysis.

Interest in the pathways young people take from high school to early adulthood indicates that participation in early employment and postsecondary education facilitates long-term independence, agency, and career stability (Eliason et al., 2015; Shanahan et al., 2002). Although many adolescents with disabilities do not participate in these early adult experiences at rates commensurate with their normative peers, the overall structure, timing, and persistence of these patterns is not well understood. The current study analyzes data from the National Longitudinal Transition Study 2 (NLTS2) to explore patterns of emerging adult engagement in employment and/or postsecondary school among young adults with high-incidence disabilities across three early adult time points (20 to 25 years old) as well as adolescent precursors to these patterns. The sample was comprised exclusively of youth with disabilities (i.e., learning disabilities, emotional disturbance, and intellectual disability), 32% of participants were students of color, and 23% were from families living below the federal poverty line. Results suggested 3 patterns of adult engagement: dynamically engaged (15%), primarily employed (51%), and primarily unengaged (34%). Student race and disability type were associated with these patterns as were individual skills (e.g., reading, mathematics & social skills), family characteristics (i.e., parent expectations), and school experiences (i.e., peer relationships, extracurricular activities) gathered during high school. These findings shed new light on the patterns of early employment and postsecondary participation among emerging adults with disabilities as well as adolescent predictors of these patterns. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Exploring the M in STEM: Post-secondary Participation, Performance and Attrition in Mathematics

Improving student participation and achievement in post-secondary STEM courses continues to be an important concern of many governments and educational institutions since this is one avenue by which the number of STEM professionals can be increased. This paper examines and compares the gendered participation, performance and attrition rate of candidates in two post-secondary mathematics courses over a 5-year period from 2013 to 2017. This study used the Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE) results from the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC), which is the main public examination board in the Caribbean, for 15,220 candidates (N = 19,585) from 71 post-secondary educational institutions in Jamaica. ‘CAPE’ applies to both the course of study and the associated examination. The study found that, on average, approximately one-fifth of the candidates who pursue CAPE courses in Jamaica opt to study a mathematics course and that across the 5 years this remained relatively stable. There was, however, a marked decrease in the number of candidates choosing to enrol in Unit 2 courses on completion of the related Unit 1 course. Another key finding was that, while a higher percentage of males chose to undertake Applied Mathematics Unit 2 and equal proportions of male and female candidates the other three courses, there was a significant difference in the overall performance by gender with females outperforming their male peers. These findings suggest that initiatives are needed which improve student performance and experience in CAPE mathematics Unit 1 subjects which could then reduce student attrition across units.

Living Landscapes, Archi-text-ures, and Land-guaging Algo-rhythms

Current conceptions of STEM focus on the Western views of distinct academic disciplines—sciences, technologies, engineering, and mathematics. There are national and international initiatives aimed at increasing workforce and postsecondary participation in STEM-related fields, including individuals in under-represented groups. While the emphases of these initiatives are clear, further consideration regarding the meaning and purpose of STEM is necessary. From our indigenous and ecological perspectives, limited questioning around STEM not only marginalizes other cultural forms of knowing—especially those which are connected to the environment—but also denies the potential for other cultural forms of knowing to contribute to the development and advancement of STEM. We are particularly interested in how STEM might be re-imagined within indigenous and ecological perspectives; what alternative meanings of STEM are enabled; and in light of these, what other purposes are possible for STEM? In this paper, we consider other cultural forms of knowing, specifically those forms of knowing deeply connected to the environment, to explore how such practices enable a re-imagining of STEM. Focusing on living landscapes, topography, architecture, and algo-rhythms, we engage the reader to play with these ideas, question taken for granted meanings of STEM, and re-imagine STEM within ecological and indigenous perspectives.

Authentic science experiences with STEM datasets: post-secondary results and potential gender influences

ABSTRACT Background: Dataset skills are used in STEM fields from astronomy to zoology. Few fields explicitly teach students the skills to analyze datasets, and yet the increasing push for authentic science implies these skills should be taught. Purpose: The overarching motivation of this work is to understand authentic science learning of STEM dataset skills within an astronomy context. Specifically, when participants work with a 200-entry Google Sheets dataset of astronomical data, what are they learning, how are they learning it, and who is doing the learning? Sample: The authors studied a total of 82 post-secondary participants, including a matched set of 54 pre/post-test (34 males, 18 females), 26 video recorded (22 males, 2 females), and 3 interviewed (2 males, 1 female) participants. Design and methods: In this mixed-methods study, participants explored a three-phase dataset activity and were given an eight-question multiple-choice pre/post-test covering skills of analyzing datasets and astronomy content, with the cognitive load of questions spanning from recognition of terms through synthesizing multiple ideas. Pre/post-test scores were compared and ANOVA performed for subsamples by gender. Select examples of qualitative data are shown, including written answers to questions, video recordings, and interviews. Results: This project expands existing literature on authentic science experiences into the domain of dataset education in astronomy. Participants exhibited learning in both recall and synthesis questions. Females exhibited lower levels of learning than males which could be connected to gender influence. Conversations of both males and females included gendered topics. Conclusions: Implications of the study include a stronger dataset focus in post-secondary STEM education, and the need for further investigation into how instructors can ameliorate the challenges faced by female post-secondary students.

Bootstrapping: The Emergent Technological Practices of Post-secondary Students with Mathematics Learning Disabilities

Drawn from an investigation of the emergent technological practices of post-secondary students with mathematics learning disabilities, this case study employs an enactivist framework in considering the bootstrapping processes our participants report engaging in when using personal electronic devices for academic support. Video-recorded, semi-structured interviews were conducted with nine post-secondary participants with mathematics learning disabilities in two western Canadian urban centres. Findings suggest that participants used technology to control and improve sensory input in order to better access mathematics course content and monitor the accuracy of their work, engage with alternate presentations of mathematical concepts to enhance their level of understanding, reduce workload, and improve organization. We discuss how their strategies in using technology relate to Bereiter’s categorization of bootstrapping resources (1985), including imitation, chance by selection, learning support systems, and piggybacking. Grounded in a “learner’s perspective,” this case study identifies technological adaptations and strategies that may be helpful to others with mathematics learning disabilities.

A Mixed Methods Study of K–12 Influences on College Participation for Students With Disabilities

This study investigated K–12 experiences individuals with disabilities perceived as influencing their transition to and participation in postsecondary education. Using a convergent transformative mixed methods research design, the study integrated findings from interviews and surveys ( n = 13) using multiple correspondence analysis. Qualitative analyses yielded eight K–12 facilitators of postsecondary education participation. Quantitative results showed participants reported access to at least one previously identified high school predictor, high levels of self-determination, and neutral identification with a disability community. Finally, integrated findings revealed that endorsement of facilitators was associated with experiencing a challenging transition to postsecondary education. Research and practice implications are discussed.

Closing the Gap to Postsecondary Success: A High School and University Partnership

Low-income students, many of whom reside in urban environments, often lack the support they need to prepare for postsecondary education, identify the best fit schools, apply for financial aid, enroll and persist in their studies, and, ultimately, graduate with a degree. Since 2014, a university school counseling department and a New York City high school collaborated to provide targeted and focused college readiness, awareness, and engagement activities to each and every student in the senior class through the direct involvement of school counseling preservice graduate students. The project’s primary goals focused on student outcomes related to an improved graduation rate and postsecondary participation rate, with varying degrees of success. Participants in the high school–university partnership realized the value and importance of engaging students much earlier in career and college planning process.

Reimagining Indian Higher Education: A Social Ecology of Higher-Education Institutions

Background/ContextDeveloping countries desire institutions ranked as “world-class,” and want to increase postsecondary participation. Limited public monies require decisions that usually augment the welfare of one objective at the expense of another. An additional conundrum concerns the need for quality assurances. Research needs to be rigorous; students need to be well trained. The authors suggest that the social ecology of higher education has a crucial role to play in India. The challenges are whether to accommodate rapid expansion, how to improve the overall quality of the system, and invest in a research infrastructure.Purpose/Objective/Research Questions/Focus of StudyThe article's purpose is to ask if the social ecology of postsecondary education that has been created in India is in its best interests. Social ecology refers to the universe of postsecondary organizations that account for the 35,357 institutions in India. Insofar as the ecology is “social,” the citizens and government determine the shape of the ecology. The authors first offer a traditional definition of what has been meant by the public good and then turn to a consideration of India's social ecology of higher education. The article's purpose then, is specific to India and more generalized to postsecondary education in a globalized world. The text situates the institutions and systems of higher education into a social ecology that until recently has been framed by the idea of a public good.SettingThe study took place in India during 2015–2016.Research DesignThe text is an analytic essay that utilized secondary texts pertaining to the structure and quality of the postsecondary system in India.Conclusions/RecommendationsThe authors suggest that the “'alphabet soup” of institutional forms that currently exists in India does not serve the country well; the taxonomy tends to obscure, rather than clarify, roles and responsibilities. They argue that a new social ecology of higher education needs to be put forward that streamlines relationships, clarifies roles and regulations, improves data analysis, and focuses on quality rather than quantity.

Note-Taking Instruction for College Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder

ABSTRACTUsing a multiple baseline across participants design, this study examines the functional relationship between instruction in note-taking skills and the ability of young adults with autism spectrum disorder to take notes on college lectures. The three participants were enrolled in a program aligned with the Higher Education Opportunity Act (Public Law 110-315) to support students with significant cognitive disabilities in attending community college classes. All had graduated high school on a special diploma status and had mild cognitive disabilities. Despite some variability in performance during baseline (when only the note-taking template was introduced), all three students demonstrated increased performance during intervention when they were taught skills such as distinguishing between subtopics and details, paraphrasing, and using abbreviations and symbols. Participants’ improvements were maintained after the intervention instruction stopped. Participant Tau-U effect sizes ranged from 0.67 to 1.00, and the weighted average Tau-U effect size was 0.88 (CI95 = 0.53 to 1.24). The discussion addresses implications for the postsecondary participation of students with autism spectrum disorder as well as possible changes needed in their secondary education.