Faculty attitude toward a nontraditional studies program

A survey was conducted among faculty members to determine their feelings about a nontraditional degree program. The faculty did not feel that the degree was of less rigor than a traditional degree and was in general favorable to the idea of innovative degree programs. However, the faculty was skeptical about any rewards that they might accrue by participating in the program.     

Self‐regulation empowerment program: A school‐based program to enhance self‐regulated and self‐motivated cycles of student learning

This article describes a training program, Self‐Regulation Empowerment Program (SREP), that school professionals can use to empower adolescent students to engage in more positive, self‐motivating cycles of learning. It is a two‐part approach whereby self‐regulated learning coaches (SRC) (a) use microanalytic assessment procedures to assess students' self‐regulation beliefs and study strategies and (b) train students to use these strategies in a cyclical, self‐regulation feedback loop. Ultimately, students learn how to set goals, select and monitor strategy effectiveness, make strategic attributions, and adjust their goals and strategies. The program was developed from social‐cognitive theory and research and integrates many of the essential features of the problem‐solving model. Interventions used in the SREP include graphing, cognitive modeling, cognitive coaching, and structured practice sessions. A case study is presented to illustrate procedures for implementing the program. Implications for school psychologists and teachers also are presented and discussed. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Psychol Schs 41: 537–550, 2004.     

Building an evaluation framework for a competency‐based graduate program at the University of Southern Mississippi

This article describes an ongoing project to build an evaluation framework for a competency‐based graduate program at The University of Southern Mississippi. Many traditional methods of evaluating performance at academic institutions provide only a partial assessment of individual program performance. In an increasingly competitive global economy, program evaluations should also consider the perspectives of students, graduates, and employers in order to develop curricula that will address the critical skills sets needed for strategic and value‐added performance improvement work in the 21st century.     

Issues in quality education and the evaluation of nontraditional graduate programs

The traditional hallmarks of quality graduate education may be few but they are powerful. Graduate schools are seen by most academics as fixed entities with no viable alternatives. Accreditation associations, while claiming flexibility, often represent these traditional interests. Ultimately, few institutions, including the traditional, view accreditation with enthusiasm. Is accreditation worth the effort for nontraditional graduate institutions? Despite the weaknesses of the process, nontraditional graduate programs should seek full accreditation. Recognition is likely if, among other suggestions, nontraditional programs don't overpromise and do identify their program design with conceptual clarity.     

Spontaneous Self‐Distancing and Adaptive Self‐Reflection Across Adolescence

Experiments performed primarily with adults show that self‐distancing facilitates adaptive self‐reflection. However, no research has investigated whether adolescents spontaneously engage in this process or whether doing so is linked to adaptive outcomes. In this study, 226 African American adolescents, aged 11–20, reflected on an anger‐related interpersonal experience. As expected, spontaneous self‐distancing during reflection predicted lower levels of emotional reactivity by leading adolescents to reconstrue (rather than recount) their experience and blame their partner less. Moreover, the inverse relation between self‐distancing and emotional reactivity strengthened with age. These findings highlight the role that self‐distancing plays in fostering adaptive self‐reflection in adolescence, and begin to elucidate the role that development plays in enhancing the benefits of engaging in this process.     

Ways of thinking about the future: Implications for nontraditional graduate education

Post-secondary educational institutions are characterized by their seemingly inherent resistance to the nontraditional. Understanding ways of thinking about the future, however, will help the educator who has nontraditional ideas to plan and implement these ideas more effectively. This article presents different orientations to thinking about the future and employs futures analysis techniques for discussing some of the major ideas in the previous articles in this special journal issue.     

Situated Self‐Esteem

Pervasive though it is in modern life, the concept of self‐esteem is often viewed with distrust. This paper departs from an idea that was recently aired by Richard Smith: that we might be better off without this concept. The meaning of self‐esteem is explored within four ‘homes’: the self‐help industry, social science, therapy and education. It is suggested that the first two use a ‘simple’ concept of self‐esteem that indeed we are better off without. This concept eliminates the distinction between truthfulness and delusion, and relies on a chimera of quantifiability. The much richer concept of situated self‐esteem is explored, and it is argued that low self‐esteem in children (often narcissistically disguised) should command the attention of educators. Teachers should address this through education and communication, and reject the idea (prevalent in the USA) of boosting self‐esteem through a content‐free curriculum.     

美国“北卡罗莱纳州教学研究员项目”述评及其启示

与我国师范生免费教育政策相似,美国"北卡罗莱纳州教学研究员项目"以奖学金吸引学生从教。该项目制定了完善而严格的规章制度,对学生入学标准、学业成绩、奖学金实施、违约惩罚都有详细规定,在保证培养质量、吸引学生从教以及减少新入职教师流失等方面都取得了显著成效。这对解决我国免费师范生中较为普遍存在的学习动力不足、从教意愿不强的问题提供了启示:在招生环节注重考察学生的综合素质;加强对免费师范生的职业引导;合理利用奖学金制度激发学生学习动机;完善免费师范生违约机制。     

The role of state humanities program in reaching nontraditional learners

Humanities programs that involve citizens in discovering the relevance of the humanities to contemporary American experience are supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities through its state affiliates. Potential benefits are enhanced through the incorporation of intended learners in the planning and evaluation stages. For a decade, state humanities agencies have been catalysts in the design and delivery of programs that reach adults who have not traditionally been students of the humanities.Ronald Benson is Executive Director of the Georgia Endowment for the Humanities. Before coming to Georgia, Ron was Professor of Philosophy at Ohio Northern University.     

Self‐modeling as a treatment for increasing on‐task behavior

The study investigated the effectiveness of self‐modeling as a treatment to increase on‐task behavior. A multiple baseline design across 3 students was employed to determine the treatment effects. In addition, classroom peers' on‐task behavior was employed as comparison data. The results indicated immediate, substantial, and durable changes in students' on‐task behavior that generalized across academic settings. The 3 students evidenced an increase of on‐task behavior from an average of 33% of the intervals observed at baseline to 86% during treatment. At 6‐ and 8‐week follow‐up, the students' percentages of on‐task behavior was essentially indistinguishable from their classroom peers. Consumer data indicated that the teachers and students were satisfied with the procedure. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Class scheduling and academic achievement in a non-traditional graduate program

This study examines the relationship between scheduling format and academic achievement in a nontraditional master's degree program. At the beginning of each of three successive semesters, a pretest was administered to juvenile probation officers enrolled in a research methods course. Each group was exposed to the same course content but under varying conditions: intensive, eight hours a day for five consecutive days; compacted, eight hours a day for two and one-half successive week-ends; and normal, four hours each day on weekends spread out equally over five weekends of a regular 15-week semester. A posttest was administered at the conclusion of each class and results compared to a control group that had experienced the course under a traditional format of three hours per evening, one day a week for 15 successive weeks. Findings indicate no effect due to scheduling format. However, of interest is the finding that academic achievement is positively associated with having had a research methods course as an undergraduate but negatively associated with the elapsed time between receiving a baccalaureate degree and commencing graduate study. Implications from the finding for nontraditional graduate programs are discussed.Center for Juvenile Justice Training and Research.     

Anxious Solitude and Self‐Compassion and Self‐Criticism Trajectories in Early Adolescence: Attachment Security as a Moderator

Youths’ attachment representations with their parents were tested as moderators of the relation between peer‐reported anxious solitude and self‐compassion and self‐criticism trajectories from fifth to seventh grades. Participants were 213 youth, 57% girls, M = 10.65 years of age. Growth curves revealed that attachment representations with both parents moderated the relation between AS and self‐processes such that AS youth with (a) dual secure attachments demonstrated the most adaptive self‐processes, (b) one secure attachment demonstrated intermediately adaptive self‐processes, and (c) dual insecure attachments demonstrated the least adaptive self‐processes over time. AS youth with dual insecure attachments are of most concern because they demonstrated elevated and increasing self‐criticism over time, given evidence for relations between self‐criticism and internalizing psychopathology.     

Skills‐Based Training and Counseling Self‐Efficacy

The authors studied the effectiveness of the skilled counselor training model (SCTM). Counseling students who completed the SCTM demonstrated greater gains in skills acquisition and counseling self‐efficacy than counseling students who did not receive the training. At pretest, the counseling students in both groups, doing self‐appraisals, rated their performance of counseling skills significantly higher than trained raters assessed the students' performance of counseling skills. At posttest, members of the control group continued to overestimate their skills levels when compared with the ratings given by the trained raters, whereas, in comparison, students who received SCTM training underestimated their performance.     

Self‐Regulation and Mathematics Instruction

Abstract The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of research‐based interventions that incorporate self‐regulation strategies to improve mathematics performance of students with learning disabilities (LD). Self‐regulation is a metacognitive function essential to academic success. Students with LD are notoriously poor at self‐regulation and must be taught explicitly to monitor and control their cognitive activities as they engage in academic tasks such as mathematical problem solving. This article describes intervention studies that use self‐regulation strategies to improve mathematics performance of students with LD at the elementary, middle, and secondary school levels. Several techniques to facilitate effective implementation of self‐regulation instruction in the classroom are presented.     

Impaired graduate students: A process model of graduate program monitoring and intervention

Psychological impairment is an area of concern in training graduate students in counseling programs. This article reviews the potentially harmful consequences of impaired graduate students to graduate programs, faculty, other graduate students, and the counseling profession. The paper provides an overview of existing trends, policies, and procedures regarding student screening, remediation, and dismissal from graduate training programs within a Western framework. A process model for monitoring and intervention is presented.     

Self‐Assessment in Art Education through a Visual Rubric

A tool for self assessment in secondary art education was developed and tested. The tool includes rubrics for assessing production and reception activities in art education and consists of visual and text rubrics. The criteria in the rubrics are based on the Common European Framework of Reference for Visual Literacy which was developed by The European Network of Visual Literacy (ENViL). The way teachers and students use the rubrics, whether they consider them helpful and to what extent students’ self‐assessments are in line with teacher assessments was studied. It was concluded that teachers work with the rubrics intensively and both students and teachers appreciate its visual form. However, it was found that the agreement between teachers and students about the students’ scores was moderate and needed to improve. The results show that it is untrue that students, or boys in particular, overestimate their own performance in art education. The current study contributes to the development of feasible and valid assessment criteria and instruments in secondary art education.     

A comparison of students enrolled in nontraditional and traditional graduate education programs in terms of grade point average and graduate record examination scores

The quality of graduate students enrolled in nontraditional, field-based education was compared to that of graduate students in traditional, on-campus professional education degree programs through grade point average (GPA) and graduate record examination scores. The comparison of mean scores indicated that there is no statistically significant difference (P<.05) between the two groups of students. It was concluded that there is no difference in quality of students enrolled in the two types of graduate programs.     

Evaluation of a group intervention using a feminist approach for women experiencing sexual abuse

OBJECTIVE: The present study evaluates a group intervention using a feminist approach for women experiencing sexual abuse in childhood or adulthood in order to measure changes associated with participation in a group intervention and verifies whether effects are maintained over time. The present study relates effects of the group intervention in terms of psychological distress, depression symptoms, post-traumatic stress symptoms and feelings of guilt and helplessness. METHOD: The sample consists of 26 women participating in a group intervention offered by sexual assault centers in Quebec (CALACS - Centre d'aide et de lutte contre les agressions à caractère sexuel). RESULTS: Results show significant differences between pretest and post-test scores obtained one week following the end of the group intervention and gains are maintained at follow-up 3 months later. CONCLUSION: The findings suggest that participation in the group intervention is associated with a reduction of psychological distress, depression symptoms, post-traumatic stress symptoms and feelings of guilt and helplessness in adult women reporting sexual abuse.