What college chemistry instructors and high school chemistry teachers perceive as important for incoming college students

Professors of college chemistry were asked to rank various examples of traditional chemistry knowledge and skills as to their importance for incoming students to possess. A pilot study revealed that the items—all selected from one edition of the American Chemical Society-National Science Teachers Association (ACS-NSTA) Chemistry Achievement Examination—represented attributes viewed as relatively unimportant. The professors then identified 29 personal traits they considered more important for incoming students to possess. Subsequently, these items, knowledge, skill, and personal attributes, were included in a three-part assessment instrument. The instrument was administered to 69 college chemistry professors selected at random and to 37 high school chemistry teachers. The results reveal that the college professors universally identified student personal attributes as significantly more important for incoming students to possess over specific knowledge and skills included in the ACS-NSTA Achievement Examination. Chemistry professors do not find items commonly used to assess success in high school chemistry as important attributes for incoming students to possess. Conversely, high school chemistry teachers regard the knowledge and skill items to be more important for college preparation than personal attributes.     

Teaching as Theater

As new media proliferate, professors need to be particularly attentive to the ways by which students learn—in and out of the classroom—and how scarce classroom time can be organized. This article argues that professors' comparative advantage lies as an exemplar of discipline‐based thinking. Effective training in how to think about problems (the essence of any discipline) demands that professors embrace the classroom as theater, where business drama and the story it tells can capture the hearts and minds of the student participants. The article talks through a case as theater.     

Teaching and Learning How to Create in Schools of Art and Design

This article describes the studio model—a cultural model of teaching and learning found in U.S. professional schools of art and design. The studio model includes the pedagogical beliefs held by professors and the pedagogical practices they use to guide students in learning how to create. This cultural model emerged from an ethnographic study of two professional schools of art and design. A total of 38 professors from a total of 15 art disciplines and design disciplines were interviewed and their studio classes were observed. A grounded theory analysis was used to allow the studio model to emerge from audio recordings of interviews and video recordings of studio classes. The model was then validated by 16 different professors at six additional art and design schools. The studio model was found to be general across art and design disciplines and at all eight institutions. The central concept of the studio model is the creative process, with three clusters of emergent themes: learning outcomes associated with the creative process, project assignments that scaffold mastery of the creative process, and classroom practices that guide students through the creative process.     

Four approaches to preservice teachers’ involvement in the writing of case stories: a qualitative research project

In this paper, professors’ framings for student-written cases in six elementary teacher education classes are examined. Analysis procedures were qualitative. There were similarities and differences in course syllabi and materials defining case writing, time spent on cases in class, ways of modeling cases, comments to students on drafts, and professors’ reasons for selecting favorite cases. All professors felt that a good case reflected a genuine dilemma which contained details, support, and reflection. Findings showed that writing roles within the research project had an impact upon ways in which case writing was directed, and how the professors thought about cases and reflected upon the experience afterward. Through their experiences with case writing and through engaging in self-inquiry about case writing, the professors came to understand their students in different ways, students came to understand professors and teaching in different ways, and professors developed new insights into their own practices.     

Media competencies of university professors and students. Comparison of levels in Spain,Portugal, Brazil and Venezuela / Las competencias mediáticas de profesores y estudiantes universitarios. Comparación de niveles en España,Portugal, Brasil y Venezuela

Abstract

Media competencies are a set of skills that every individual should possess in order to be able to consume and produce media and digital and information products in a critical and analytical way. This exploratory and comparative work analyses the level of media competence among 1,676 university students and 524 professors in Brazil, Spain, Portugal and Venezuela. One of the main results shows that the level of knowledge of technology and interaction — which is linked to digital competencies — does not depend solely on age, thus contradicting theories of digital natives and migrants. Our study also found that the general level of media competence is no better than medium to low when considering language, technology, interaction, production and dissemination, ideology and values, and aesthetics. These results point to the need to develop transversal actions for instructing both university professors and students in media competencies to face an ecosystem dominated by fake news and disinformation, as well as public policies directed at improving these skills among citizens at large.     

Uses and abuses of statistical significance tests and other statistical resources: a comparative study

The empirical study we present here deals with a pedagogical issue that has not been thoroughly explored up until now in our field. Previous empirical studies in other sectors have identified the opinions of researchers about this topic, showing that completely unacceptable interpretations have been made of significance tests and other statistical resources. We tried to show the degree to which these errors of interpretation appear in a sample of university professors and researchers. To evaluate the beliefs and opinions of the university professors about certain methodological and statistical questions, we adapted the "Psychometrics Group Instrument" questionnaire by Mittag (1999) and Mittag and Thompson (Educational Researcher 29:14-20, 2000). We specifically wanted to detect opinions about: (1) avoiding inappropriate interpretations, (2) rectifying incorrect uses, (3) creating a debate on possible alternatives, and (4) proposing editorial changes in the publication criteria. In this study, we compare the results we obtained with those obtained by two other equivalent studies (Gordon, Journal of Vocational Educational Research 26:1-18, 2001; Mittag and Thompson, Educational Researcher 29:14-20, 2000). The characteristics of the sample and the scope of the results are described, and a critical reflection is carried out on typical misunderstandings in interpretation that show a worrisome lack of understanding of some basic methodological and statistical concepts.     

Justice in the Higher Education Classroom: Students’ Perceptions of Unfairness and Responses to Instructors

We investigated college students’ perceptions of instructor unfairness and their emotional and behavioral reactions to perceived injustice. Results obtained from 397 undergraduates from three universities in the United States indicate that anger and dissent were the strongest emotional and behavioral responses to injustice. Furthermore, disgust mediated the influence of injustice on student behaviors most damaging to professors—taking action, expressing verbal aggression, and dissenting to authority. Stress mediated the effect of injustice on the most constructive student behaviors—changing their approach and engaging in the class. We discuss the implications of the results of our study for the student-instructor relationship and learning in the contemporary higher education environment.     

Exploring Taiwanese High School Students’ Perceptions of and Preferences for Teacher Authority in the Earth Science Classroom with Relation to their Attitudes and Achievement

Educational researchers have suggested that the tension between the learner‐centred and teacher‐centred pedagogies represents a real classroom issue that influences teaching and learning. This issue may be particularly significant in East‐Asian countries such as Taiwan due to some cultural influences. For example, teacher authority is highly valued in the culture. Accordingly, the present study aims to develop a questionnaire—the Teacher Authority Survey (TAS), with actual and preferred versions—to explore students’ perceptions/preferences regarding teacher authority in the earth science course. The relationships among students’ perceptions/preferences for teacher authority, learning attitudes, and learning achievements were investigated. Six hundred and seventeen Taiwanese high school students were administered the TAS, the earth science attitudinal questionnaire, and achievement assessment. Both exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses indicated that the TAS developed in this study has satisfactory validity and reliability measures. Correlation analysis indicated that the classrooms more oriented to learner‐centredness were correlated with more favourable attitudes toward learning. Moreover, three clusters of preferred teacher authority—namely, teacher‐centred authority, uncertain authority, and sharing authority—were identified. Students who preferred sharing authority tended to have more favourable learning attitudes, whereas students in the uncertain authority group seemed to have lower earth science attitudes and achievements.     

Learning styles and approaches to learning in excellent and average first-year university students

We assessed the learning approaches and learning styles of a sample of 148 excellent students selected from 11 degrees from nine centers of the Polytechnic University of Valencia (Spain), and we compared the results with those of a sample of 133 average students from the same centers. We found that excellent students took deeper approach than average students and that they preferred reflective and theoretical learning styles. Average students adopted a more surface approach, and they preferred active and pragmatic learning styles. Greater academic achievement was related to the deep approach and to the reflective and theoretical learning styles. Poorer academic achievement was related to the surface approach and an active style. University professors may reinforce the deep approach by placing high aims for students which go well beyond reproducing knowledge but use other complementary methods other than expository teaching: problem solving, case studies, designing projects, raising questions, discussion and negotiation in the classroom, etc. To accomplish this, teachers must encourage students to be committed, and these methods help do that. It also helps to introduce more demanding evaluation procedures which do not merely involve repeating what has been learnt, but include training guidance that offers students feedback.     

Student evaluation of teaching in the virtual and traditional classrooms: A comparative analysis

The present case study consists of the content analysis of anonymous student responses to open-ended evaluation of teaching questions submitted by 202 students for fully online and on-campus versions of the same graduate courses taught by the same professors over four academic years. Online courses received both more praise and more negative comments than did equivalent on-campus courses. The net result was a more negative rating for online courses. Findings suggest that the online course delivery medium introduced misalignment for some students between their preferred learning environment and the actual learning environment, notwithstanding student self-selection of the course delivery medium.     

The Role of Practicality in the Choice of Instructor Rating Methods

Behavioral Expectation Scales (BES) were compared to summated and trait-oriented scales as measures of teaching performance. The scales were developed in a college setting; the ratees were college professors and their raters were college students. Both the psychometric properties and the practicality criterion were examined. Overall, the psychometric evidence suggests that the summated format is slightly superior. When the issue of practicality is examined in terms of the raters’ perceptions of which method is easiest, most difficult, most defensible, and most accurate, the summated scale is definitely superior. Surprisingly, even the students who participated in the development of the BES format preferred the summated form. Given the inconclusive psychometric evidence reported in the literature, and until better tests are formulated, it appears that the deciding factor will ultimately depend on what we believe is the neglected criterion of practicality.     

Mentoring Undergraduate Researchers: An Exploratory Study of Students’ and Professors’ Perceptions

Mentoring is believed to be one of the most influential factors in US efforts to encourage college‐aged students to seek careers in science, yet the role that mentoring plays in this process has not been elucidated. The researchers were interested in understanding whether the long‐held beliefs about the importance of mentoring would be revealed as what actually occurs in an undergraduate research program. They describe students’ perceptions of the mentoring process and students’ beliefs about how it impacted their experiences as undergraduate researchers and their development as scientists. Also described are professors’ perceptions of their roles and effectiveness as mentors in students’ development as scientists. A multi‐case narrative analysis was conducted of two groups, undergraduate science scholars (n=5) and mentoring professors (n=5), who were each interviewed on two occasions at the beginning and end of the first year of a funded research program. As this grounded research study shows, students and professors described student gains as increased technical expertise and communication skills. Professors suggested that they were available to students on a regular and frequent basis. However, students’ experiences suggested a contradiction. They were often mentored by postgraduates, technical assistants, and other students; their meetings with mentoring professors were infrequent and at times distant. With respect to mentoring, this finding highlights the differences between beliefs and the reality of what was delivered. Professors discussed the challenges associated with mentoring including the recruitment of and difficulty of working with students whose first language was not English and concerns about the quality of instruction from graduate students.     

Understanding the characteristics of effective professors: the student's perspective

Increasingly, higher education institutions are realising that higher education could be regarded as a business-like service industry and they are beginning to focus more on meeting or even exceeding the needs of their students. Recent research findings suggest that the factors that create student satisfaction with teaching (‘teaching satisfiers’) may be qualitatively differently from the factors that create dissatisfaction with teaching. Thus, this research uses the Kano methodology to reveal the characteristics of professors that students take for granted (‘Must-be factors’) and that have the potential to delight them (‘Excitement factors’). Kano questionnaires containing 19 attributes of effective professors taken from previous studies and focus group discussions were handed out in two marketing courses to 63 postgraduate students enrolled in a service marketing course. The Kano results corroborate previous US findings that revealed the importance of personality in general and support studies that stress the importance of professors creating rapport with their students in particular.     

Using Student Samples in Criminological Research

Professors have long relied on the assistance of their students in various aspects of the research process. For example, students often contribute in their role as research assistants and as co‐authors on scholarly papers and presentations. They also participate in another important way—as samples in their professors’ research projects. In criminology and criminal justice, student samples are often used in behavioral studies, tests of criminological theories, pilot tests of methodologies, and in evaluating attitudes toward crime and justice issues. This article provides an overview of the types of studies that have used students as samples in criminological research. Attention is given to the strengths and weaknesses of using such an approach, and implications for continuing to use students in criminological research are discussed.     

Access and perceived ICT usability among students with disabilities attending higher education institutions

An increasing number of students with disabilities are attending higher education. These students might face various difficulties coping with academic skills and with learning methods compared to students without disabilities. Integrating information and communication technologies (ICTs) in academic studies may be effective and constructive for students with and without various disabilities, as ICTs can provide students with adaptive ways to compensate for disabilities and enable them to improve learning. The present study examined students’ knowledge of and accessibility to ICTs and it examined students’ perceptions of the ICTs used by professors teaching in a face-to-face traditional postsecondary educational institute (in Canada) and a distance/blended learning higher education institute (in Israel). The sample included 309 Canadian students and 963 Israeli students who completed questionnaires regarding ICT usage, accessibility, and perceived use by professors. Findings reveal that Israeli students reported higher use and greater accessibility of ICTs and they also reported higher use of ICTs by professors. For both groups of students – those with and without LD/ADHD - accessibility to ICTs was predicted by self-reported knowledge and use of ICTs, professors’ ICT use, gender and nationality. The study’s findings and its implications are likely to be important for promoting access to ICTs for students with and without disabilities in both the traditional higher education modality and in distance/ blended learning contexts.     

Do professors have customer-based brand equity?

This research endeavors to understand whether certain professors have customer-based brand equity (CBBE) in the minds of students. Consequently, the purpose of this study is to conceptualize, develop, and empirically test a model of customer-based professor brand equity. Survey data gathered from 465 undergraduate business students were used to test the model. Structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis findings indicate that certain professors do indeed have CBBE and the transference of the brand-building effort can be successfully applied to professors who are willing to be strong brands. The results show that professor brand characteristics – quality of instruction, competence, and reputation – have an influence on students' feelings of attachment to the professor and to the quality of relationships with the professor brand and therefore, professor brand equity. The ultimate goal of most professors is to inculcate lifelong student learning, but this worthy pursuit gains wings through the professor brand-building effort.     

Mentoring in literacy education: a commentary from graduate students,untenured professors,and tenured professors

This commentary continues a dialogue which began among literacy teacher educators attending an alternative format session about mentoring in the academy at a national conference. Literacy teacher educators participated in an informal discussion centered on the nature of mentoring in the academy for doctoral students, untenured professors, and tenured professors. Doctoral students focused on their changing identities and roles in the academy, their concerns about navigating the political infrastructure of academia, and the importance of assuming a proactive stance towards obtaining mentoring, especially for part‐time doctoral students. Untenured professors focused on the ways they were inventing and reinventing themselves within the power and politics of academia and their need for more holistic mentoring during these turbulent times. Tenured professors were able to embed mentoring experiences into their scholarly work and find ways to benefit or learn from mentoring experiences. These mentors also found comfort in more informal mentoring that included self‐initiated endeavors centered on mutual interests. Our commentary draws on these discussions as well as the professional literature on mentoring to describe the importance of mutual trust and reciprocity in mentoring throughout all stages of academia with attention to cultural and linguistic diversity.     

Partners in Learning: A Grounded Theory Study of Relational Practice between Master’s Students and Professors

Meaningful academic relationships between adult master’s students and their professors can both deepen students’ learning and serve as a regenerating force for professors. This study employed grounded theory methods to explore the question, “What goes on in relational practice between master’s students and professors?” I interviewed 10 matched pairs of recent alumni and professors who identified as having “a meaningful academic relationship”. Dimensional analysis surfaced two core dimensions: reconstructing and regenerating. In reconstructing, the students’ core dimension reveals the student experience of reconstructing, or understanding more deeply, theory or one’s self. In the case of regenerating, the professor’s core dimension identifies the professors’ experience of “giving back” through their teaching and extending their professional reach by training others. These experiences serve to reinvigorate professors over the course of their careers. In addition, findings in this study resonate with sensitizing concepts including relational cultural theory and relational practice. Finally, the analysis surfaced evidence supporting authentic teaching concepts and connected these concepts to faculty and student learning partnerships.