Given that student retention is now one of the leading challenges faced by colleges and universities, research seeking to understand students’ reasons for attrition is of critical importance. Two factors influence students’ underachievement and subsequent dropping-out of college: self-efficacy and goal orientation. Self-efficacy refers to peoples’ judgments about their abilities to complete a task. Goal orientations refer to the motives that students have for completing tasks, which may include developing and improving ability (mastery goals), demonstrating ability (performance-approach goals), and hiding lack of ability (performance-avoidance goals). This study examined differences among goal orientations and self-efficacy using two distinct student groups: college students in good academic standing (GPA of 2.0 or higher) and college students on academic probation (GPA of less than 2.0). Results indicated that self-efficacy and mastery goals were positively related to academic standing whereas performance-avoidance goals were negatively related to academic standing. Students in good academic standing reported having higher self-efficacy and adopted significantly more mastery goals toward learning than students on academic probation. Among students who reported having high self-efficacy, those on academic probation reported adopting significantly more performance-avoidance goals than those in good academic standing. These findings suggest that teachers should identify those students with not only low self-efficacy, but those also adopting performance-avoidance goals. Teachers and administrators may be able to provide guidance to students who have beliefs and goals that contain maladaptive patterns of learning that sabotage their ability to succeed in school.

Executive function refers to a variety of behaviors and abilities related to planning and strategy use, as well as to the maintenance of attention and behavior in the pursuit of some goal. Many instruments have been designed for the purpose of assessing executive function, and the tower tasks represent a specific group of measures commonly used in the assessment of this construct. This review and meta-analysis examines the theoretical and psychometric basis for the use of the various tower tasks in neuropsychological assessment of adults. Neuroimaging and electrophysiological evidence are consistent with theoretical hypotheses of frontal involvement (e.g., planning and strategy use) in tower task performance. Further, adults with various disorders of presumed neurological basis demonstrate impaired performance on tower tasks. Implications for the use of tower tasks in practice and research are discussed.

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The purpose of this article is to describe the psychometric characteristics of the Academic Coping Strategies Scale (ACSS), which was designed to assess college students' coping strategies within the context of a specific academic stressor. This article will present results of analyses of factor structure, internal consistency, test-retest stability, and validity evidence based on relationships with other variables. Results suggest that items can be grouped into three easily interpretable factors (i.e., Approach, Avoidance, and Social Support) and that preliminary psychometric data are mostly favorable. The article will also describe limitations of the study, directions for future research, and potential applications of the ACSS. An important next step in the development of the ACSS will be to modify the scale for use with middle and high school students so that professionals working in the schools will have a method of assessing academic coping strategies among youth.