Project staff made substantial contributions to the development of NSSL's design and instrumentation.
Tentative indications are that the unique contributions of the two areas are approximately equal.
In addition, first-generation students have lower critical thinking skills, lower degree aspirations, report receiving less encouragement from family to attend college, spent less time socializing with peers and talking with teachers while in high school, and were more likely to be women. First-generation students also tended to be older, to have more dependent children, and to expect to need additional time to complete their degrees. Although traditional students make greater net gains than first-generation students in reading during their first year, the two groups gain to about the same degree in math and critical thinking skills. Those gains, however, appear to result from somewhat different college experiences.