Educational Measurement: Issues and PracticeVolume 40, Issue 4 p. 53-56 Commentary Commentary: Reviving the Messenger: A Response to Koljatic et al. (2021) Krista Mattern, Corresponding Author Krista Mattern krista.mattern@act.org ACT, Inc Correspondence Krista Mattern, ACT, Inc, krista.mattern@act.orgSearch for more papers by this authorTy Cruce, Ty Cruce ACT, IncSearch for more papers by this authorDianne Henderson, Dianne Henderson ACT, IncSearch for more papers by this authorTina Gridiron, Tina Gridiron ACT, IncSearch for more papers by this authorAlex Casillas, Alex Casillas ACT, IncSearch for more papers by this authorMelinda Taylor, Melinda Taylor ACT, IncSearch for more papers by this author Krista Mattern, Corresponding Author Krista Mattern krista.mattern@act.org ACT, Inc Correspondence Krista Mattern, ACT, Inc, krista.mattern@act.orgSearch for more papers by this authorTy Cruce, Ty Cruce ACT, IncSearch for more papers by this authorDianne Henderson, Dianne Henderson ACT, IncSearch for more papers by this authorTina Gridiron, Tina Gridiron ACT, IncSearch for more papers by this authorAlex Casillas, Alex Casillas ACT, IncSearch for more papers by this authorMelinda Taylor, Melinda Taylor ACT, IncSearch for more papers by this author First published: 02 August 2021 https://doi.org/10.1111/emip.12459Citations: 1Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume40, Issue4Winter 2021Pages 53-56 RelatedInformation

Students’ choice of college major is related to their interests (Porter and Umbach in Res High Educ 47:429–449, 2006), and students whose major is well-aligned with their interests are more likely to persist in that major (Allen and Robbins in Res Higher Educ 49(1):62–79, 2008) and complete a college degree in a timely manner (Allen and Robbins in J Couns Psychol 51(1):23–35, 2010). This study investigates whether a specific signal (i.e., Low, Medium, or High fit) that high school students receive about the alignment between their initial choice of planned major and their measured interests has an impact on the subsequent certainty of their initial choice of planned major. A regression discontinuity design was used to investigate the stability/increase in planned major certainty across two ACT administrations for students with Medium versus Low fit and High versus Medium fit. Results did not provide evidence that the signal is effective; possible explanations and recommended future research are discussed.

This report provides a non-technical overview of the guiding research questions and research design for the ACT-led core research program conducted on behalf of the GEAR UP College and Career Readiness Evaluation Consortium (CCREC). The core research program is a longitudinal study of the effectiveness of 14 GEAR UP state grants on the academic achievement, college going and college retention of low-income and other at-risk students who are eligible to receive grant-funded services. This research program will follow Consortium students and a matched comparison group of non-participants over time using assessment data from ACT Explore, ACT Plan or ACT Aspire, and The ACT, and college enrollment data from the National Student Clearinghouse (NSC) to examine differences in the academic growth and educational outcomes of these two groups.

This longitudinal multi-institution study examines the effects of students’ involvement in high school service clubs and their level of civic-mindedness when entering college on their propensity and intentions to volunteer during college. The level of civic-mindedness was measured by a self-rating of their ability to work effectively with others toward solving real-world problems and contributing to the welfare of the community. We found that the impact of college experiences on students’ propensity and intentions to volunteer operates fairly independently of these 2 precollege controls, suggesting that prior findings supporting the impact of college experiences on community service are not biased by self-selection.

Over the next decade, Baby Boomers will be reaching retirement age in large numbers and the U.S. will be undergoing one of the most significant demographic shifts in its history. This demographic shift has important implications for the role of higher education as a provider of lifelong learning and for the changing composition of postsecondary institutions. Using data from the 2005 National Household Education Survey, the results of this study informs the higher education community about this emerging student market segment as a way to help us better respond to older adults’ demand for formal learning in postsecondary institutions.

This methodological note illustrates how a commonly used calculation of the Delta-p statistic is inappropriate for categorical independent variables, and this note provides users of logistic regression with a revised calculation of the Delta-p statistic that is more meaningful when studying the differences in the predicted probability of an outcome between two or more groups. Although one cannot fully document the extent to which this error in the current calculation of the Delta-p statistic has spread across the field, the potential for error is far reaching as an increasing number of researchers use logistic regression to study categorical outcomes and as researchers look more closely at the Delta-p statistic as a means to communicate the results of logistic regression models to policy makers and administrators. It is recommended that higher education scholars and institutional researchers use caution when reporting the Delta-p statistic from prior studies and that they adopt the revised calculation of the Delta-p statistic presented in this methodological note when estimating logistic regression models with categorical independent variables.

Individual and Environmental Effects of Part-Time Enrollment Status on Student-Faculty Interaction and Self-Reported Gains Based on responses from 55,915 seniors at 224 public colleges and universities, this study shows part-time students interact with faculty less and report smaller educational gains than their full-time peers. Further, the proportion of part-time seniors negatively affects the amount of interaction between full-time seniors and faculty.

This study examines the relationships between student engagement, college GPA, and persistence for 6,000 students attending 18 baccalaureate-granting institutions. Data sources included student-level information from the National Survey of Student Engagement, academic transcripts, merit aid, and ACT/SAT score reports. Engagement had positive, statistically significant effects on grades and persistence between the first and second year of study for students from different racial and ethnic backgrounds. Equally important, engagement had compensatory effects for historically underserved students in that they benefited more from participating in educationally purposeful activities in terms of earning higher grades and being more likely to persist.

The impacts of community service participation on college student development are extensive and well documented. The characteristics of students that predict volunteerism, however, are not well understood. The purpose of this study is two fold: first, to estimate the differences in first year students' decision to volunteer while in college by their background characteristics and by the characteristics of the institutions that they attend; and second, for those students who did not volunteer, to estimate the differences in their intentions to volunteer (i.e., "Plan to do," "Do not plan to do, "or "Have not decided") by those same student and institutional characteristics. Study results suggest changes to several campus practices that may remove barriers to successful community service participation among first year students.

This study estimated separately the unique effects of three dimensions of good practice and the global effects of a composite measure of good practices on the cognitive development, orientations to learning, and educational aspirations of students during their first year of college. Analyses of longitudinal data from a representative sample of colleges and universities were conducted, and net of a battery of confounding influences, measures of good practices were positively related to a number of first-year outcomes. The magnitude of the effects of these good practices differed by the pre-college characteristics of the students and by the type of institution attended.

Academic selectivity plays a dominant role in the public's understanding of what constitutes institutional excellence or quality in undergraduate education. In this study, we analyzed two independent data sets to estimate the net effect of three measures of college selectivity on dimensions of documented good practices in undergraduate education. With statistical controls in place for important confounding influences, an institution's median student SAT/ACT score, a nearly identical proxy for that score, and the Barron's Selectivity Score explained from less than 0.1% to 20% of the between-institution variance and from less than 0.1% to 2.7% of the total variance in good practices. The implications of these findings for what constitutes quality in undergraduate education, college choice decisions, and the validity of national college rankings are discussed.

Researchers estimated the net effects of liberal arts colleges on 19 measures of good practices in undergraduate education grouped into seven categories. Analyses of 3-year longitudinal data from five liberal arts colleges, four research universities, and seven regional universities were conducted. Net of a battery of student precollege characteristics, whether or not a student was enrolled full-time and lived on campus, and the academic selectivity of the institution attended, liberal arts colleges evidenced stronger positive impacts on a broad range of empirically vetted good practices in undergraduate education than did either research universities or regional institutions. The impact was most pronounced in the initial year of postsecondary education.