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IntroductionVincent Tinto is a towering figure in the study of dropout in higher education whose theory regarding student departure is a widely accepted contribution that explains how students become involved in the academic community and how their level of engagement impacts their decision to persist or to drop out. The aim of this study is to advance understanding of how Vincent Tinto's theories influence the current practices and support services offered by higher education institutions to freshman students through first-year seminars (FYS).MethodsA systematic review was conducted based on peer-reviewed articles published between 2020 and 2022, selected through a multi-stage process. With reference to Tinto's contribution, this systematic review aims at providing answers to the following research questions: What are the methodological approaches identified in the studies under analysis? What knowledge can be identified in recent studies related to the categories of students attending FYS? What knowledge about students' personal and psychological characteristics with relevance for FYS can be found in recent studies? What knowledge about academic pedagogical and counseling factors with relevance for FYS can be found in recent studies? What knowledge about social and relational factors integration with relevance for FYS can be found in recent studies?ResultsThe findings indicate three categories of studies that capitalize on Tinto's theories with regard to the design, conduct and evaluation of first-year seminars: a. studies that assess the role of students' personal and psychological variables, considered within FYS; b. studies that analyze the pedagogical and counseling interventions destined to students within FYS; c. studies that analyze the role of the social and relational dimension within FYS.DiscussionThe literature on the topic capitalizes on Vincent Tinto's contributions in relation to a student corpus which is extremely diverse in terms of age, socio-economic status, racial and cultural characteristics, attended specialization (a significant number of studies are destined to students who attend STEM specializations), generational characteristics (the example of first-generation students). Therefore, the interventions aimed at facilitating the integration of first-year students are carefully tailored and customized according to the needs of these categories of beneficiaries.

The pedagogical story of what the good teacher's characteristics mean is different according to the research findings in the regular classroom situations and, respectively, in the inclusive educational settings. One of such inclusive settings addresses the talented students. They require special attention from teachers and school policy makers in order to fully develop their talent potential. Talented students have specific psycho-behavioural characteristics and special needs that require specialized, differentiated and personalised teaching. Our work focuses on talented students' moral values and their intense socio-emotional characteristics and needs, such as the receptivity to moral perceptions, the sense of justice, altruism and orientation towards the fulfilment of ideals and the increased general sensitivity. This is the reason their teachers are highly challenged to profess and to promote the education for values. The methodological approach of this article is based on gifted-education-for-values-orientated literature review. The work provides also a synthesis of the good teacher's competences emerged from the relevant evidence-based research data found in recent literature. We found that most of these research results underline the desirable characteristics and competencies of the talented students' teacher, as a moral beliefs promoter.

A first year population of 300 students completed the questionnaire on paper-pencil regarding the main variables regarding educational strategies, motivational persistence personality trait and early academic dropout intentions. We test here the moderating role of educational strategies (i.e. goal setting and pursuit, applicability of knowledge, etc.) in order to support personality trait motivational persistence (MP) for reducing early academic dropout intentions (early ADI). As results show, motivational persistence trait and early academic are negatively and significantly associated, but the relation is weak. Similarly, educational strategies that support motivational persistence trait are also significantly and negatively associated with early academic dropout intentions. Motivational persistence traits and most of educational strategies are positively and significantly associated. When adding the interaction term of motivational persistence and each educational strategy, results show a greater effect of reducing early academic dropout intentions. Results highlight the need to investigate how educational methods for higher education support motivation in the personality system for students, especially persistence as a way of dealing with hardship when faced with obstacles, without increasing their intentions of dropout. We measured educational strategies using specific measures related to motivational persistence and early academic dropout intentions that support the understanding of this phenomena in its depth.

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