Julio Caésar Cabrera—Ph.D. candidate in the quantitative methods in education program in the Department of Educational Psychology and member of the Minnesota Youth Development Research Group (MYDRG)—has been featured in Education Week for research he presented at the American Educational Research Association (AERA) annual meeting.
Using Minnesota Student Survey data, Cabrera and his MYDRG colleagues found students who practiced healthy habits—like sufficient sleep, good nutrition, and avoiding alcohol and drugs—were more likely to both plan to attend college and to achieve the level of academic success necessary for a college student.
“Not one variable alone can explain everything that’s going on in students’ outcomes,” Cabrera told Education Week. “It has to be almost a synergistic movement where we tackle all these [health factors] at the same time. When we take these four variables together, they have a huge impact.”
Cabrera’s was one of 11 MYDRG presentations at this year’s AERA and National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME) meetings.
