Identifying Factors that Influence the Successful Transition of Criminal Justice Transfer Students     

Jennifer L. Hartman  Beth Bjerregaard  Vivian B. Lord 《Journal of Criminal Justice Education》2013,24(2):173-193

Higher educational institutions place a priority on the retention and timely graduation of students. Previous literature has identified transfer students to have unique concerns and that these concerns vary by major. While previous retention research has reported factors that influence students’ decision to remain in college, many of these studies treated transfer status as a homogenous group. The university in this study enrolls a high percentage of transfer students, and a large percentage of these transfers students enroll in Criminal Justice classes and become Criminal Justice majors. To determine if there are unique risk factors among Criminal Justice transfer students, this study uses multiple measures of transfer status to identify factors that might impact a students’ (1) university involvement, (2) GPA, (3) satisfaction with and sense of belonging to their university and (4) thereby influence their decision to remain in school. The proposition that transfer students as compared to native (nontransfer) students differ on how they face university challenges was also examined. While several variables were found to be important to students’ adjustment to the University, transfer status does not appear to be significant risk factor. Implications of the results are discussed.  相似文献   

Profiles in Change: An Alternative Look at the Marshall Hypotheses∗     

John K. Cochran  Beth Sanders  Mitchell B. Chamlin 《Journal of Criminal Justice Education》2013,24(2):205-226

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall once argued that informed opinion would oppose the death penalty for all but those who support it for retributive reasons. We examine the validity of these claims with data from a series of one‐group pre‐test–post‐test designs which stem from a formalized learning outcomes assessment for several courses on the death penalty. Results show solid, but imperfect, support for these claims. The analysis then proceeds by profiling those who changed their opinions consistent with these claims, those who did not change their opinions, and those whose opinions changed in a manner opposite to these claims.  相似文献   

Evaluating the Graduation Gap: Interventions Designed to Enhance Upper-level Student Success and Commitment     

Vivian B. Lord  Beth Bjerregaard  Jennifer L. Hartman 《Journal of Criminal Justice Education》2013,24(2):153-174

Over the past several decades, there has been a wealth of research identifying factors and conditions of persistence toward graduation for first-year students and more recently transfer students. While previous research recognizes these critical periods, some recent literature suggests that students may face a similar transitional period later in their academic careers as they advance into their major areas of study. To date, there has been a dearth of information exploring upper-level students' success and commitment to graduation. Exploring this later transition might provide a critical link to understanding the graduation gap between those students who persist to graduation and those who drop out. The purpose of this research was to review the intervention programs proscribed by the literature, design an intervention program, and examine the impact of the program on criminal justice students during this advanced transitional phase of their college careers. It examined the direct and indirect effects of the intervention program on both retention and the antecedents of successful retention while controlling for other relevant influences identified in the literature. The results indicated that the intervention had small, but significant positive direct and indirect effects on academic integration, commitment to the university, and graduating in a timely fashion. Policy implications are discussed.  相似文献   

“The Coat Traps All Your Body Heat”: Heterogeneity as Fundamental to Learning     

Ann S. Rosebery  Mark Ogonowski  Mary DiSchino  Beth Warren 《学习科学杂志》2013,22(3):322-357

This article explores heterogeneity as fundamental to learning. Inspired by Bakhtin's notion of heteroglossia, a design team consisting of an experienced classroom teacher and 2 researchers investigated how a class of 3rd and 4th graders came to understand disciplinary points of view on heat, heat transfer, and the particulate nature of matter. Through a series of planned and unplanned encounters, official versions of the Second Law of Thermodynamics and the particulate view of matter were juxtaposed with varied domains of experience of heat transfer and phase change in water. We analyze the children's discourse to examine how they populated these phenomena with meaning and what they learned in the process. We conclude by describing key principles and a conundrum that emerged from this research.  相似文献