The Role of Non-cognitive Variables in Identifying Community College Students in Need of Targeted Supports

Loris P Fagioli (), Rachel Baker () and Gabe Avakian Orona ()
Additional contact information
Loris P Fagioli: Irvine Valley College
Rachel Baker: University of California, Irvine
Gabe Avakian Orona: University of California, Irvine

Research in Higher Education, 2020, vol. 61, issue 6, No 3, 725-763

Abstract: Abstract Non-academic characteristics and traits, such as academic self-efficacy and conscientiousness, have maintained the interest of higher education researchers for decades. A considerable amount of research has found that these non-cognitive variables (NCVs) are generally predictive of undergraduate success. However, most prior studies have focused on the use of NCVs in 4-year colleges, and understanding if and how these measures predict the academic trajectories of community college students has received less attention. As past work has indicated that NCVs are differentially predictive for students from different backgrounds, such an examination is needed. Drawing on data from two diverse community colleges, our study addresses this need by exploring if seven popular NCVs predict both short and longer-term student outcomes, how these measures are related to help-seeking behaviors, and their utility in identifying students at risk of serious academic failures. We find statistically significant relationships between NCVs and GPA outcomes but conclude that their practical utility appears trivial.

Keywords: Non-cognitive measures; Community colleges; Student success; Persistence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11162-020-09588-7 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:reihed:v:61:y:2020:i:6:d:10.1007_s11162-020-09588-7

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/journal/11162

DOI: 10.1007/s11162-020-09588-7

Access Statistics for this article

Research in Higher Education is currently edited by Robert K. Toutkoushian

More articles in Research in Higher Education from Springer, Association for Institutional Research
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().