New PAS Releases!

Student Financial Aid
Enhancing Student Success
Research Methods

Student Financial Aid

Student Aid and Its Role in Encouraging Persistence
Don Hossler, Mary Ziskin, Jacob Gross, Sooyeon Kim, & Osman Cekic
Published by Springer in Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research, Vol. 24, and available at the SpringerLink online database at:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/hl22841kk213m1p1/fulltext.pdf

To synthesize current understandings of how financial aid affects undergraduate persistence and graduation, the authors conducted an extensive review of studies published since 1990 in this area. They identify how the studies were conducted as well as the summative knowledge from them of the effects of grants and loans on persistence and graduation; the specific effects on persistence and graduation of merit aid, loans, and programmatic elements; and the effects of debt on student success outcomes.

Institutional Aid and Student Persistence: An Analysis of the Effects of Campus-Based Financial Aid at Public Four-Year Institutions
Jacob P.K. Gross, Don Hossler, & Mary Ziskin
Published in the NASFAA Journal of Student Financial Aid and available at the website of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators at:
http://www.nasfaa.org/Annualpubs/Journal/Vol37N1/GrossHosslerandZiskin.PDF

Although billions of dollars are disbursed each year in institutional aid, much of the research to date on student persistence does not consider such aid. The authors of this study used a statewide student unit record database to examine the effects of institutional financial aid on year-to-year persistence among first-time, first-year students at three large doctorate-granting public universities.

Enhancing Student Success

The Study of Institutional Practices Related to Student Persistence
Mary Ziskin, Don Hossler, & Sooyeon Kim
Published in the Journal of College Student Retention and available at the website of the Baywood Publishing Company at:
http://baywood.metapress.com/app/home/main.asp?referrer=default

Using literature and illustrations drawn from a pilot study of institutional policies and practices surrounding student retention, the authors explore the theoretical and methodological challenges entailed in the study of student retention. The discussion centers on two efforts to expand the theoretical base and scope for research in this area: one argues that colleges and universities are optimizers of cultural capital and the other critiques the narrowness of the frames that predominate student retention research.

How Colleges Organize Themselves to Increase Student Persistence: Four-Year Institutions
Published by the College Board and available at the College Board Advocacy website at:
http://professionals.collegeboard.com/policy-advocacy/access/retention

Most of the relevant research on this crucial issue has focused on the role of student characteristics and experience in persistence and graduation. This study examines the critical role of institutional policies and practices in student persistence and graduation and how that role develops and is enacted in institutions’ efforts to boost these measures of student success.

How Colleges Organize Themselves to Increase Student Persistence: Four-Year Institutions
is highlighted in a recent article in The Chronicle of Higher Education: "A Full-Time Focus on Retention in New Orleans":
http://chronicle.com/article/A-Full-Time-Focus-on-Retention/47961/

Enhancing Institutional and State Initiatives to Increase Student Success: Studies of the Indiana Project on Academic Success. Readings on Equal Education, Vol. 24
Edited by Don Hossler, Jacob P.K. Gross, & Mary Ziskin, with commentary from series editor, Edward P. St. John, who developed the IPAS model and was the project’s founding director.
Available for order from AMS Press, Inc., at http://www.amspressinc.com/ree.html

This volume in the Readings on Equal Education series discusses the research and program evaluation activities of the Indiana Project on Academic Success (IPAS), a collaborative effort with postsecondary institutions that used action research to identify and evaluate interventions to enhance student success and that developed and employed a state student information database to facilitate education research and to inform campus- and state-level decision making. The authors reflect on lessons learned from the IPAS initiative and examine its impact on participating institutions and individuals.

Getting Serious About Institutional Performance in Student Retention: Research-Based Lessons on Effective Policies and Practices
Don Hossler, Mary Ziskin, & Jacob P.K. Gross
Published in the journal About Campus and available at the website of Wiley InterScience at:
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/122214074/PDFSTART

Drawing on their experiences in and findings from two distinct but complementary research projects that focus on institutional efforts to enhance student persistence and graduation, the Indiana Project on Academic Success and the College Board Study on Student Retention, the authors share their growing understanding of how institutions organize themselves to enhance student persistence and the extent and effectiveness of those efforts. This article can contribute to the ongoing discussion among scholars and practitioners around the country about how to increase persistence and graduation and, by extension, to improve student learning.

Influence of an Identified Advisor/Mentor on Urban Latino Students’ College Experience
Vasti Torres & Ebelia Hernandez
Published in the Journal of College Student Retention and available at the website of the Baywood Publishing Company at:
http://baywood.metapress.com/app/home/main.asp?referrer=default

With longitudinal data from Latino students at three urban universities, the authors use T-tests to compare the scale means between students that have identified an advisor or mentor and students that have not identified one. Results indicate consistently higher levels of institutional commitment, satisfaction with faculty, academic integration, cultural affinity, and encouragement among students with an advisor/mentor.

Research Methods

Ignoring It Doesn’t Make It Go Away: Addressing Issues of Missing Data in Institutional Research
Jacob P.K. Gross, Afet Dadashova, John Moore, & Mary Ziskin
2009 AIR Annual Forum, Atlanta, GA

Following a discussion of the persistent issues related to missing data in statistical research, the various types of missing data, and the strategies for dealing with missing data, this presentation outlines the design, results, recommendations, and statistical implications of a study that used expectation maximization (EM) algorithm imputation as a strategy for addressing missing data.