Patterns of alcohol use: a two-year college and four-year university comparison case study

With more than 12 million students enrolled in over 1,150 two-year institutions, enrollment at these institutions constitutes approximately 44% of all undergraduates in the United States. Despite this, research and prevention efforts related to drinking behaviors among college students attending two-year institutions are limited, with similar information regarding students at traditional four-year institutions readily available. This study sought to examine alcohol use patterns among students at a two-year college compared to a four-year institution. It was conducted at a large (20,000+ students), public, four-year institution and a medium (8,000+), public, two-year institution located in the same community. The Core Alcohol and Drug Survey, a 39-item instrument used by colleges and universities for assessing the nature, scope, and consequences of high risk drinking behaviors in college students, was administered to students at both a two-year (n = 581) and a four-year institution (n = 928) (Cremeens & Chaney, 2012).

The prevalence estimates of current alcohol use among students at the two-year institution in this study are comparable to national estimates for students attending four-year institutions (67.5% and 69.0%, respectively). Estimates of high-risk alcohol use at the four-year institution in this study were higher than national prevalence estimates for similar colleges. Current drinkers and binge drinkers at both institutions experienced the same negative consequences. While the study results provide insight into the need for alcohol prevention efforts at community colleges, there are important factors and practical considerations related to these efforts presented here for community colleges and administrators to contemplate.     

The Relationship between Faculty Confirmation and Community College Student Self-Efficacy

Nearly half of all college students in the United States begin at community colleges, including higher numbers of students coming from backgrounds which have been historically underrepresented in higher education. Despite record numbers of new students enrolling at community colleges, the number of students who are retained at the institution long enough to be deemed successful, either through transferring or graduating, remains largely unchanged. One theory is that some students enter college with less confidence in their ability to be successful, hastening their departure. Faculty members are in a unique position to impact student self-efficacy, which ultimately may impact student success. This exploratory study quantitatively assessed whether a relationship exists between confirmation behaviors employed by faculty members in the classroom and changes in reported academic self-efficacy of students. The research was conducted through a causal comparative matched pair design with Midwestern community college students during their first semester. The results support a relationship between change in self-efficacy and perceived faculty confirmation (r_s = .212, n = 70, p = .039*), particularly for female students (r_s = .331, n = 35, p = .026*) and for those students where neither parent completed a degree higher than high school (r_s = .316, n = 46, p = .016*).     

Impacting Mediators of Change for Physical Activity Among Elderly Food Stamp Recipients

A multidisciplinary team developed and pilot-tested a curriculum, delivered by trained lay educators, to increase self-efficacy for physical activity among elderly food stamp recipients. Curriculum development was guided by a comprehensive literature review. Process evaluation was used to revise the curriculum and to assess lay educator training and pilot test fidelity. Three hundred sixteen low-income older adults participated in curriculum development and pilot-testing activities. One hundred twenty four participants completed pretest/posttest impact evaluation surveys. The average age of participants was 75 years old with 55.28% having less than high school education. Significant increases in self-efficacy regarding walking most days (p = .0022), using exercise bands (p < .0001), being physically active to increase strength (p = .0012), being active without injury (p < .0001), being able to wear appropriate clothing and shoes (p < .0001), and getting information about community physical activity programs (p = .0007) were observed. Participants also endorsed higher ratings of general health at posttest (p < .0001).     

Confidence and Expectations About Caring for Older People With Dementia: A Cross-Sectional Survey of Student Nurses

Older people who are living with dementia often need healthcare, including hospital admissions, due to additional health conditions. Caring for older people who are living with dementia is, therefore, a core nursing role. This study investigated student nurses’ expectations of, and confidence about, caring for older people with dementia and the effect of students’ age, precourse experience, and their academic year. The design was a cross-sectional survey using questionnaires to collect data. The participants (n = 328), based at one university in England, had all had at least one practice learning placement. Most student nurses (n = 202; 62%) had precourse contact with older people with dementia and had cared for them during the course (n = 291; 89%). The student's academic year significantly affected confidence about caring for older people with dementia (p = .006), but still only 52% (n = 26) of third-year students felt “generally confident.” Precourse contact with older people with dementia had a significant impact on expectations (p = .001) and confidence in caring for people with dementia (p = .002). Students who were >25 years were significantly more likely to have had precourse contact with older people with dementia (p = < .001). Nurse educators should ensure that students entering nurse education appreciate that caring for older people who are living with dementia will be a core part of their role. They must proactively prepare nursing students to care for people with dementia, recognizing that some students have no previous contact, which may affect their confidence and experiences.     

Effects of a life skills-based sexuality education programme on the life-skills,sexuality knowledge,self-management skills for sexual health,and programme satisfaction of adolescents

This study aimed to develop and establish the efficacy of a life skills-based sexuality education programme for junior high school students that focused on prevention. A non-equivalent control-group pretest-posttest design was employed with 105 students in the first-year of junior high school participating. The experimental group received 10 sessions of a life skills-based sexuality education programme, and the control group received 10 sessions of the standard sexuality education, both provided during a home economics class. A comparison of the two groups’ post-test scores showed that the experimental group scored significantly higher than the control group on sexual and reproductive health related knowledge (F = 58.50, p < .001) and life-skills (F = 11.52, p = .007). In addition, the experimental group showed a larger improvement in self-management skills for sexual health than did the control group (F = 9.32, p = .003). A life skills-based sexuality education programme increased life skills levels, knowledge about sexuality and sexual and reproductive health, and helped participants identify appropriate behaviours when facing a sexually risky situation. Results highlight the value of including an evidence-based and practice-oriented life skills-based sexuality education programme in the formal curriculum of junior high schools in Korea.     

Developing a sense of belonging in the classroom: community college students taking courses on a four-year college campus

In 2005, Louisiana implemented the Master Plan for Public Postsecondary Education: 2001 (Board of Regents, State of Louisiana, 2001) to restructure its higher education system in an effort to provide its citizens with high quality postsecondary educational choices. This restructuring forced its two-year and four-year institutions to redesign their developmental education programs. Subsequently, several two-year institutions partnered with four-year institutions to offer developmental courses on the four-year college campuses. However, little is known about the experiences of the two-year students in these settings, especially as they relate to classroom experiences. Thus, this phenomenological study explored the academic-social experiences of 20 students enrolled at the two-year college and taking classes at a four-year institution. The study was done in hopes of garnering a better understanding of factors that impact integration and persistence. This article focuses on how the students developed a sense of belonging in the classroom, and it makes connections as to how these students’ experiences may impact integration and persistence and/or transferability to four-year institutions. Additionally, recommendations for research and practice are presented.     

Connecting students to nature – how intensity of nature experience and student age influence the success of outdoor education programs

Nature connectedness counts as a crucial predictor of pro-environmental behavior. For counteracting today’s environmental issues a successful re-connection of individuals to nature is necessary. Besides the promotion of knowledge transfer the aim of the educational program presented in this study is to connect students to their environment. This research explores the impact of an outdoor environmental education program on primary and secondary school students’ nature connectedness with regard to the extent of their nature experience and participant age. The intervention was implemented in two durations: one-day and five-days. Participants were divided into four subsamples from seven up to 18 years of age. Findings suggest that both intervention types evoke immediate shifts towards a stronger nature connectedness among students (p < .001). Notably, the five-day outdoor education interventions were significantly more effective in sustainably promoting nature connectedness compared to one-day field trips (p < .001). Seven to nine year old students performed the strongest shifts towards nature. The value of short-term and residential outdoor environmental education interventions is discussed.     

Young,Depressed, and Black: A Comparative Exploration of Depressive Symptomatology Among Black and White Collegiate Women

This comparative study explored the rates of depression and psychosocial correlates for 369 collegiate White and Black females. Women between the ages of 18 and 25 were recruited to participate in this anonymous online survey. Black females reported significantly greater amounts of depressive symptomatology (M = 24.61) in comparison to the White females (M = 15.68), (F (1,377) = 61.434, p < .001). A series of Chi-square analyses indicated that Black women (52.3%) were also significantly more likely to meet criteria for major depression than White women (21.7%). These findings highlight the racial disparities in psychosocial health among college students.     

Comparison of Community College Students’ Sexual Health Dimensions

ABSTRACT

Sexually active college students in the United States have alarming rates of unplanned pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections. Varying degrees of sexual health knowledge and attitudes among college students are an outcome of sexuality education in the K-12 school systems with abstinence-only or comprehensive focus. Community college students (n = 737) aged 18–24 years, 57% from a college in an abstinence-only sex education state and 43% from a college in a comprehensive sex education state, both in the Mid-Atlantic region, took the Sexual Health Survey in October 2016, which measures sexual health knowledge and attitudes. Gender and ethnicity differences, as well as other sources of sexuality information were evaluated. Students from the comprehensive sex education state, New Jersey had higher sexual health knowledge and attitude scores than the students from the abstinence-only sex education state, Pennsylvania. Male students in New Jersey scored significantly higher in sexual health knowledge compared to male students in Pennsylvania, while female students in New Jersey had higher sexual health knowledge scores compared to the male students. Analysis of ethnicity revealed the New Jersey college sample had healthier sexual attitudes as compared to the Pennsylvania college sample, with notable distinction among Black students. The Internet, friends, and personal experiences were chosen by 75% of all students across both colleges as the top reported sources of sexuality information. In addition to advocating for comprehensive sex education, recommendations are made for sexual health initiatives in community colleges to provide sexual health instruction and support.     

What Predicts Older Adults’ Adjustment to Aging in Later Life? The Impact of Sense of Coherence,Subjective Well-Being,and Sociodemographic,Lifestyle, and Health-Related Factors

The aim of this study was to build a structural model to explore the predictors of adjustment to aging (AtA) in a community-dwelling older population. A community-dwelling sample of 1,270 older adults aged between 75 and 102 years answered a questionnaire to determine sociodemographic (sex, age, professional and marital status, education, household, adult children, family's annual income, living setting, and self-reported spirituality), lifestyle, and health-related characteristics (perceived health, recent disease, medication, and leisure). Several instruments were used to assert psychological variables, namely AtA, sense of coherence, and subjective well-being. Structural equation modeling was used to explore a structural model of the self-reported AtA, encompassing all variables. Significant predictors are self-reported spirituality (β = .816, p < .001); perceived health (β = .455, p < .001); leisure (β = .322, p < .001); professional status (β = .283, p < .001); income (β = .230, p = .035); household (β = –.208, p = .007); sense of coherence (β = ?.202, p = .004); and adult children (β = .164, p = .011). The variables explain, respectively, 60.6% of the variability of AtA. Self-reported spirituality is the strongest predictor of AtA. Other predictors are perceived health, leisure, professional status, income, household, sense of coherence, and adult children. This study emphasizes the need for deepening the variables that influence older adults’ AtA—in particular, perceived health and further lifestyle-related characteristics—as being relevant for promoting aging well in later life, within a salutogenic context for health care.     

Young people’s academic buoyancy and adaptability: a cross-cultural comparison of China with North America and the United Kingdom

Abstract

We investigated academic buoyancy (a response to challenge) and adaptability (a response to change) among a sample of 12–16-year-olds in China (N = 3617) compared with same-aged youth from North America (N = 989) and the United Kingdom (UK; N = 1182). We found that Chinese students reported higher mean levels of buoyancy and adaptability. We also found that correlations between buoyancy and adaptability, and between these two factors and motivation and engagement outcomes, were significantly higher for Chinese students than for North American and UK samples. In path analyses, buoyancy and adaptability positively and significantly predicted motivation and engagement (typically at p < .001) in all three regions; however, buoyancy effects were significantly stronger for the Chinese students.     

The construction of a questionnaire to evaluate the science orientedness of students' identities as learners from a cognitive perspective

Forming a science-oriented identity is considered a process underlying both interest and achievement in science education. A questionnaire is developed for describing “identities as learners” and evaluating their science orientedness. The instrument (k = 65) focuses on cognitive aspects. An internal coherence of .88 was found. Five subscales were defined that proved interrelated yet distinguishable. A pilot amongst 40 students from Dutch general secondary education showed that preferring science over non-science subjects and relatively high grades for sciences subjects were strongly correlated to science orientedness of the learner identity (r_s  = .65; p < .001). The results support the reliability and validity of the questionnaire but also point to the importance of identity as a central concept in studying science education. It is concluded that we made a promising step in constructing an instrument for monitoring the development of cognitive aspects of science-oriented identities during (innovative) science education.     

An Intergenerational E-mail Pal Project on Attitudes of College Students Toward Older Adults

Intergenerational interactions have demonstrated some success at improving attitudes of college students toward older adults. This quasiexperimental study involved undergraduate college students paired with older adults for a six-week e-mail exchange. Student attitudes toward older adults were measured pre- and posttest with Polizzi's revised version of the Aging Semantic Differential (ASD). Students were assigned to an intervention group (n = 23) or a control group (n = 20). The intervention group demonstrated significant improvement in attitude toward older adults as compared to the control group (F 14.694, p < .05). This educational approach holds promise for using readily accessible technology to connect the generations.     

Is differential exposure to college linked to the development of critical thinking?

This study investigated the influence on critical thinking of differential exposure to postsecondary education. The sample was 2,076 first-year students attending 13 four-year and 4 two-year institutions from around the country. First-year students attending college full-time developed a higher level of critical thinking skills than those attending part-time. In the presence of controls for precollege critical thinking and academic motivation, the average critical thinking of first-year students at the institution attended, gender, race, age, and kinds of courses taken, the number of semester hours for which the student was enrolled had modest but significant positive effects on end-of-first-year critical thinking for both the two- and four-year college samples. In the two-year, but not the four-year, sample the relationship between semester hours and critical thinking deviated significantly from linearity. Students attending a two-year college full-time still derived the largest critical thinking benefits. However, the lowest levels of critical thinking accrued to those enrolled between 7 and 20 semester hours. Students enrolled for 6 or less hours actually had somewhat higher end-of-first-year critical thinking.     

Using statement banks to return online feedback: limitations of the transmission approach in a credit-bearing assessment

Electronic marking tools that incorporate statement banks have become increasingly prevalent within higher education. In an experiment, printed and emailed feedback was returned to 243 first-year students on a credit-bearing laboratory report assessment. A transmission approach was used, students being provided with comments on their work, but no guidance as to how they should use these remarks. A multiple-choice question test, undertaken before and after the return of feedback, was used to measure learning. Although returned comments included model answers, test scores showed no overall enhancement, even when students’ marks for their laboratory reports were initially hidden. A negative and significant (p = .010) linear trend between relative test scores and test date suggests that even modest improvements in subject knowledge were lost over time. Despite this, students could accurately guess their mark based on emailed feedback alone, estimated and awarded marks being linearly correlated (p < .001). It is concluded that statement banks organised according to published assessment criteria can ultimately help students to appreciate how their work was graded. However, students should be encouraged to produce a structured response to received feedback if self-assessment is to occur.     

Student support for reproductive health education in middle schools: findings from Lebanon

Reproductive health education (RHE) programmes in schools are a well-recognised means of helping young people make informed decisions relating to their sexual health and well-being. Very little research however has investigated attitudes towards such programmes among students in the Arab world. A national HIV education curriculum was developed in Lebanon in 2005. However, in the context of competing priorities and mixed levels of social resistance, curriculum implementation to date is far from universal. This study aimed to determine the prevalence of support for school-based RHE and the main factors associated with such support among young people aged 11–16 years in Lebanon. A secondary analysis of data from the 2011 Global school-based Student Health Survey (GSHS) was conducted. Students who supported RHE (58.1%) were more likely to be of higher grade level (adjusted OR [Odds Ratio]?=?1.78, p-value = 0.005), to have ever drunk alcohol (adjusted OR = 1.52, p-value = 0.012), to prefer mixed classes for RHE (adjusted OR = 3.19, p-value < 0.0001), to say RHE should start before or at puberty (adjusted OR = 3.57, p-value < 0.0001), and to be exposed to more health education topics in school (adjusted OR = 1.2, p-value < 0.0001). Identifying such sub-groups in the student body should inform the equitable implementation of RHE in culturally diverse settings like Lebanon.     

Improving caregivers’ confidence with the Powerful Tools for Caregivers program

ABSTRACT

The Powerful Tools for Caregivers (PTC) program is designed to help caregivers develop skills to improve their self-efficacy in caregiving. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the PTC program in Boise, Idaho, the program’s pre-survey (n = 277), end-of-program survey (n = 131), and 6-month follow-up post-survey data (n = 100) collected between 2011 and 2017 were analyzed in this study. The end-of-program survey data indicated that caregivers viewed the quality of the program to be excellent and that all of them felt more confident as a caregiver. Factor analysis and reliability testing on the pre-survey data confirmed that seven questions included in the pre- and 6-month follow-up post-survey instruments reliably measured a single factor named as caregiver confidence. A paired samples t-test on 76 complete sets of pre- and 6-month follow-up post-survey data on the seven questions revealed that caregivers improved their confidence in caregiving to a statistically significant level (p < .001, d = 45). Additional paired samples t-tests on each of the seven questions with the Bonferroni correction showed statistically significant improvements in three areas: making tough decisions (p < .001, d = .53), coping with emotions (p < .001, d = .54), and using stress-reducing activities (p < .007, d = .33). Caregivers experienced the greatest improvement in their confidence in making tough decisions. Despite these significant improvements, caregivers still struggled with finding ways to reduce stress and manage their emotions associated with caregiving as shown by the lowest pre- and 6-month follow-up post-survey scores. In addition to the study results, several considerations when synthesizing PTC research results are discussed.     

Perceptions about Homeless Elders and Community Responsibility

Human service students were surveyed (N = 207) to determine their perceptions about homeless elders and communal responsibility for their well-being. Using a backward regression analysis, a final model (F = 15.617, df = 7, p < .001) for Perceptions about Homeless Persons and Community Responsibility (predicted variable) included the predictor variables of Homeless Older Persons Are Afraid and Lonely; Homeless Persons and Health Issues; History of Homeless Older People's Life on the Street; Touching a Homeless Older Person; Hygiene and Homeless Older People; Interest in Working with Elders; and Educational status. The findings indicated that the predictor variables accounted for more than 36% of the variance in Perceptions about Homeless Older Persons and Community Responsibility (R ² = .386; adjusted R ² = .361).     

The Effectiveness of the Geospatial Curriculum Approach on Urban Middle-Level Students’ Climate Change Understandings

Climate change science is a challenging topic for student learning. This quantitative study examined the effectiveness of a geospatial curriculum approach to promote climate change science understandings in an urban school district with eighth-grade students and investigated whether teacher- and student-level factors accounted for students’ climate change knowledge achievement. The participants included 12 science teachers and 956 eighth-grade students. Data included a pre- and posttest climate change assessment measures for both teachers and students and a teacher measure of Geospatial Science-Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge. Paired-sample t tests revealed statistically significant gains from pretest to posttest on their climate change knowledge (p < .001; effect sizes being large on multiple-choice items and medium on the open-ended response assessment). Both ordinary least squares (OLS) multiple regression and 2-level hierarchical linear modeling found that students’ initial climate change knowledge and gender were significant predictors for students’ posttest scores, p < .05. Students’ pretest scores were the strongest significant predictor of the posttest scores, p < .001. Neither the teachers’ climate change knowledge nor their Geospatial Science-Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge had significant association with the students’ posttest scores. Teaching years was a significant predictor for students’ posttest scores in OLS regression (p < .001). The findings provide support that a geospatial curriculum approach is an effective science curriculum approach for learners in urban middle-level education.