This dissertation examined the relationship between the three year academic success of transfer students and the variables of race, gender, age, number of transfer credit hours, and place of residence. The study was conducted at Midwestern State University, a public, regional four-year institution and followed the incoming transfer classes of the fall 2005 (N = 292), 2006 (N = 323), and 2007 (N = 286) semesters. The subjects included in this study were all new transfer students who met the university.s requirement to live on campus. The dependent variable, three year academic success, was defined as whether or not the student was still persisting or had graduated within three years from the date of initial enrollment. The independent variables were housing status during the first semester after transfer, age at time of transfer, gender, race, and the number of credit hours at the time of transfer. The first research question aimed to determine if housing status impacted the three year academic success in the population. Chi-square analysis found that there were no significant distributions of the students who lived on-campus and the students who lived off-campus during their first semester after transfer. The second research question aimed to determine if …

This study explored the legal parameters of sovereign immunity and its waivers for employees of public institutions of higher education in the state of Texas. This empirical study examined the decisions of the Texas Judiciary concerning public university litigation in the area of sovereign immunity, with a review of major state court decisions. Legal research methodology was used in this study. The data for this study included case study review of six cases decided by the Texas judiciary. Information about each of the cases and the important legal inferences from the cases was discussed. A review of the history of sovereign immunity and the current status of the application of the Texas Tort Claims Act was also included. Based on the review of the relevant case law and scholarly commentary, the study findings suggest that a) Texas courts recognize and apply the doctrine of sovereign immunity, unless the application of the doctrine is restricted by the Texas Tort Claims Act; b) the Texas Tort Claims Act establishes limited waivers to sovereign immunity applicable only under specified circumstances and subjects; c) Texas courts were consistent in applying the circumstances by which an institution or its actors waived sovereign immunity. Practice recommendations …

This study examined differences between adult first-generation (AFG) and adult-continuing generation (ACG) students’ academic self-efficacy with regard to the online courses in which they were currently enrolled. The study used an online survey methodology to collect self-reported quantitative data from 1,768 undergraduate students enrolled in an online course at a mid-sized, four-year public university in the southwestern United States; 325 cases were usable for the study. The t-tests revealed no statistically significant differences between the academic self-efficacy of the AFG and ACG students. Parents’ level of educational attainment was unrelated to adult students’ academic self-efficacy with online courses. Ordinary least-squares analysis was used to evaluate student characteristics that might be associated with academic self-efficacy in the online environment. A combination of gender, GPA, age, race/ethnicity (White, Black, Hispanic, and other), and number of previous online courses predicted a statistically significant 12% of the variance in academic self-efficacy in an online environment (p < .001). Age (p < .001) and self-efficacy were positively correlated, meaning that adult students reported greater academic self-efficacy than did younger students; and number of previous online courses (p < .001) was also positively correlated to academic self-efficacy, indicating that students with greater experience with online courses …

The purpose of this non-experimental, quantitative study was to determine how well selected institutional characteristics explain the variance in Hispanic community college students’ transfer rates to 4-year institutions. Due to the rapidly growing Texas Hispanic population, understanding challenges to their educational attainment has become critical. Hispanic community college enrollment in Texas continues to rise, yet these students are not transferring to 4-year institutions at the same rate as other groups. This study analyzed data from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board of 50 Texas community colleges to determine how well the independent variables (Hispanic population of each community college campus locale, Hispanic community college student college readiness as indicated by Texas Success Indicator scores, and the percent of Hispanic faculty at each community college) accounted for the variance on the dependent variable (Hispanic community college student transfer rate). Multiple regression was used to determine the magnitude of the relationships between the dependent variable and the combination of all the independent variables. Commonality analysis was then utilized to identify proportions of variance in the dependent variable from combinations of the independent variables. The independent variables together generated a statistically significant regression model on the dependent variable, F(4, 64) = 3.067, p …