Training Health Fitness Professionals in Human Interaction Skills: The Link to Physical Education Graduate Education

The author argues in a personalized statement that exercise science graduate degree programs ought to include attention to the questions of how people develop and maintain persistent exercise habits, and how health fitness professionals can help them do so. Recommendations are made for two-tiered graduate preparation in exercise science: master's degrees that focus on preparation of health fitness professionals trained in human interaction skills as well as exercise physiological bases for conducting fitness programs, and doctoral degrees that continue to focus on preparation of researchers and faculty members trained to expand the knowledge base in exercise physiology and to prepare both the new master's and doctoral candidates though graduate education programs.     

Enhanced learning pathways and support for coursework master's students: challenges and opportunities

The focus of this paper is on student learning pathways – with particular reference to the factors motivating coursework master's students to seek entry to a doctoral programme – along with the implications for higher education policy and practice. It is argued nationally and internationally that although a number of challenges continue to confront those with responsibility for teaching and supervising coursework master's students, there are opportunities for renewal especially in terms of the provision of enhanced student support. Located within an international context of postgraduate education, a case study from Australia is provided to highlight the need for more flexible doctoral pathways at a time when calls for revitalised and expanded research workforces are intensifying.     

Learning to become graduate students: Japanese women's experience in the research unit in engineering

Based on the analysis of 16 interviews with women first-year master's students at two national engineering schools in Japan, this article examines the socialisation role of compulsory undergraduate research experience in Japanese women's decisions to pursue graduate education and choices of the programme. The findings suggest that research experiences in a small independent research unit within the major department convinced Japanese women engineering students of their academic and social success as graduate students in the current environment. Although participants generally adapted themselves to the research unit through their research, there is a variation in the degree to which they were smoothly integrated into the research unit, reflecting organisational and individual differences.     

European Survey of Master's and Doctoral Dissertions in Science Education

Editorial comment and summaries

English

Drs Kjöllerström and Lybeck present here a brief report of their European survey of master's and doctoral dissertations in science education, undertaken subsequently to a workshop on Research in Science Education in Europe held at Malente, FR Germany in 1976. The full report of their survey has recently been published by the Institute for Science Education (IPN), Kiel, FR Germany.

The article published here reports on the distribution, size and organization of science education research groups, their areas of research interest and higher degree programmes. It also surveys the main areas of science education research at master's and doctoral level undertaken during the period 1971‐1976, and the employment taken up by master's and doctoral students upon completion of their studies.     

Parental aspirations for their children's educational attainment and the realisation of universal primary education (UPE) in Kenya: Evidence from slum and non-slum residences

There is a sound research base attesting to the importance of parental involvement and to the many potential benefits it can offer for children's education. This study sought to examine differences in parental aspirations (as a mechanism of parental involvement in their children's education) for their children's educational attainment between slum and non-slum residing parents in Kenya. The study used cross-sectional household data for a sample of 4065 parents, collected in 2007 by the African Population and Health Research Centre (APHRC) in Nairobi. A multinomial logistic model was used for the analysis to explore the factors determining parental aspirations. The results indicate the following: (i) that parents who live in the slums have lower aspirations for their children's educational attainment when compared to those who live in non-slum areas; (ii) that parents in the slums have aspirations for higher levels of educational attainment for their children than their own levels of education. We conclude that parents in urban Kenya have a strong belief in the education of their children irrespective of their slum or non-slum residence but aspirations are higher in non-slums than in slums.     

Foregrounding Women in the Doctoral Classroom: Mainstreaming and Single-Sex Approaches to Graduate Education

An increasing number of published studies have drawn attention to gender disparities in various dimensions of Christian higher education. Although the majority of students on the campuses of member institutions of the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities (CCCU) are women, and the percentage of women holding faculty and administrative roles has increased, the male-normed environment of the academy continues to be evident in various ways, particularly in these Christian institutions. At the same time, higher education—and doctoral education in particular—is an important pathway to prepare future leaders and professors for Christian organizations. One potential way to begin to shift toward a more welcoming climate that benefits both men and women on CCCU campuses is to “foreground,” or make central, women's issues and concerns as part of regular classroom teaching. Such foregrounding can help counter the historic tendency to treat men's experience and concerns as normative for the human race. In the discipline of missiology, women make up the bulk of the practitioners yet are underrepresented as scholars, making it a pertinent field to challenge the neglect of women's voices and concerns in the academy. This article describes how a missiology classroom has been used to create a climate where women have opportunities to be central and where women's perspectives are treated as equally important as men's perspectives. To do this, I used three key practices: intentionally addressing gendered topics in mixed classes, offering selected single-sex education opportunities for women, and focusing on gender-related topics for research and publication. Using the discipline of missiology as a case study in relation to the importance of giving women's contributions to the field both recognition and voice may also offer transferable insights for doctoral faculty in other disciplines.     

Gatekeeping During Admissions: A Survey of Counselor Education Programs

Within counselor preparation, gatekeeping begins during the admission process. This article focuses on the prevalence of screening procedures used in master's‐ and doctoral‐level counselor educator programs (N = 79) accredited by the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs. Additionally, programs' selection and matriculation processes are discussed along with implications for counselor education and supervision.     

Testing the Engagement Theory of Program Quality in CACREP‐Accredited Counselor Education Programs

This study examined the engagement theory of program quality ( Haworth & Conrad, 1997 ), which highlights positive student learning outcomes that result from stakeholder involvement in program evaluation within master's‐level graduate programs. A total of 481 master's‐level counseling students and 63 faculty members, representing 68 Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP)–accredited counselor education programs, participated in the study. Findings reveal that engagement theory is a potentially useful quality assessment resource for CACREP‐accredited programs in their efforts at enhancing and sustaining program quality.     

Teaching Research

Different assumptions about reality and knowing underpin different research methods. Contrasting a phenomenological/ interpretivist approach with the assumptions of positivism, I describe teaching about philosophical issues in master's and doctoral courses. At the master's level, exercises in observation introduce students to social constructionist concepts; at the doctoral level the framework emphasizes five levels of re-presentation of experience: attending, telling, transcribing, analyzing, and reading. Greater attention to methodological diversity and contrasting philosophical underpinnings would strengthen research education in social work.     

Field Supervision of Counselors in Training: A Survey of the North Atlantic Region

Most of the research on supervision has focused on supervisors in academic institutions (faculty members or doctoral students). In this article the authors describe a study in which they examined supervisors in community agencies where master's level counselors were assigned for practicum and internship training. The survey suggested that agencies were heavily invested in supervising graduate level counseling students and providing them with a rich clinical experience. Respondents typically had a master's degree, used various models of supervision, and provided feedback by means of self-report and audiotape or videotape review of counseling sessions. Results suggest that these supervisors had little contact with the concurrent academic supervisor and may have had little formal training in supervision. Implications of this survey include a need for more training for supervisors in graduate counseling programs and a need for more liaison between campus and field supervisors.     

Perceived Competency in Working With LGB Clients: Where Are We Now?

Lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) clients use counseling services at higher rates than their heterosexual counterparts, yet current training for counselors may be inadequate. In this online study, 234 graduate counselor education and counseling psychology students completed the Sexual Orientation Counselor Competency Scale ( Bidell, 2005 ) and provided information about their training in working with LGB clients. Participants viewed themselves as more competent on the Awareness and Knowledge subscales than on the Skills subscale. Increased level of training (doctoral vs. master's), number of LGB clients seen in practica, and attendance at LGB‐focused workshops and conferences were associated with increased competence. Implications for programmatic development are discussed.     

The Relationship between Behavioral Inattention,Meta‐Attention,and Graduate Students' Online Information Seeking

Success in postsecondary education requires proficiency with academic online information seeking. Navigating the internet to find information is a complicated task that is vulnerable to lapses in attention. This study examined the relationships among Canadian graduate students' self‐reported behavioral inattention symptoms, awareness and regulation of attentional focus (meta‐attention), and online academic information seeking abilities. One‐hundred and thirteen (99 female) graduate students (83 master's level, 27 doctoral level) completed an online self‐report questionnaire examining domain‐ and strategic‐experience, behavioral inattention symptoms, meta‐attention, and online information seeking ability. Results indicated that self‐reported inattention symptoms, both components of meta‐attention and domain experience each significantly predicted unique variance in online information seeking ability. Implications for research and intervention are discussed.     

Four generations of women's educational experience in a rural Chinese community

Our study sought to understand changes in gender inequality in education across four generations of rural Chinese women's educational experiences in a small community in southern China. The 24 interviews and numerous informal conversations with 12 women showed that gender-based favouritism for men and against women undergirded family expectations, support, and decisions about women's formal education, but this manifested in different ways over generations. It appeared as strict gender division of labour within families, control, or ignorance of women's access to schooling, participants' emotional trauma, lower expectations of daughters' schoolwork, and gender-discriminating language in schools.     

‘Special strengths for their own special duties’: women,higher education and gender conservatism in late Victorian Britain

The article discusses contributions towards female higher education made by a group of women whose views on gender roles were conservative, rather than feminist or suffragist. Four women's conservative ideals and interconnected work for women's education are reviewed in the context of late Victorian Oxford. This study is prefaced by a discussion of historical literature on women's higher education which concludes that twentieth century feminist historians have sometimes downplayed the role of reformers who deliberately disassociated women's educational reform from the advance of gender equality. A study of conservative reformers complicates definitions both of feminism and anti‐feminism, and provides an important reminder of the broader intellectual and political contexts which produced them both.     

Jiang Nanxiang Stresses Following Three Principles in Implementing Academic Degree Programs

Xinhua News Agency (Beijing, September 8) reported that Jiang Nanxiang, minister of education, gave a report on university programs to the twentieth session of the National People's Congress Standing Committee on September 7. He said that in August of this year, the Evaluation Subcommittee of the State Council Committee on Academic Degrees had approved China's first 145 units? to confer doctoral degrees in 805 specialties, and 471 units to confer master's degrees in 2,957 specialties. It also approved a list of 1,143 faculty members to supervise doctoral students.     

‘Second‐class Priests with Second‐class Training?’: a study of Local Non‐stipendiary Ministry within the Church of England

A doctoral study is reported, of action research on the motivation of 12–14‐year‐old religious education pupils in England. An earlier master's dissertation gives the basis and cues a developed conceptual framework including adolescence, creativity, ethnography, pedagogy and iterativity. Four cycles of praxis are traced. The emergent factors in pupil motivation are dialogue with difference, existential and ethical interest and personal significance. Recommendations for religious education pedagogy are advanced but their epistemological status as possibilities for change, subject to assessment and refinement in successive contexts, is kept in view. A critical discussion integrates the recommendations with elements of current religious education debate and then reviews the study's methodology in the light of current discussions of the nature of action research. The article concludes with remarks on the power of action research as a teacher development tool.     

The politics of gender segregation and women's access to higher education in the Islamic Republic of Iran: the interplay of repression and resistance

One of the significant achievements of the Islamic Republic of Iran has been the increasing access of women to all levels of education. This paper focuses on women's access to higher education and its unexpected and paradoxical outcomes. Today women in Iran represent over 60% of university students at the undergraduate level. Against the dominant social imaginary of Muslim women, this paper explores how the contradictions and complexities of politics within the Islamic Republic impact women's lives and how women themselves have been able to bring gender justice to the core of Iranian politics.     

Does the expansion of higher education reduce gender gaps in the labor market? Evidence from a natural experiment

In 2005 Chilean congress approved a bill that established a new funding tool for higher education funding through a "private system" of student loans (named CAE). The system aimed to support higher education inclusion among students with academic merits overcoming the lack of resources for ensuring access. Politicians have referred to this reform in higher education funding as a critical factor for expanding higher education enrollment. By its immediate results, it is a great strategy to cope with inequality and social mobility issues. However, there is little empirical evidence about labor market variables' overall effects, such as gender discrimination. This work attempts to estimate the new instrument's impact on the three standard measures of gender labor discrimination: labor participation, the gender wage gap, and the glass ceiling. The empirical strategy uses a difference-in-difference approach to provide estimates. The results indicate that the CAE policy changed women's labor market participation and contributed to close the gender pay gap in the labor market. However, the glass ceiling increased in the entire labor market, but not in the white-collar job market in specific.     

Mentoring Women Doctoral Students: What Counselor Educators and Supervisors Can Do

Based on the experiences of two women completing their university doctoral programs, these case studies offer information about the components of mentoring relationships that facilitate women's performance in higher education.     

Professional Identification of Counselor Preparation Programs

A survey of 521 counselor preparation programs nationwide revealed that most programs with master's or both master's and doctoral degrees have a counseling professional orientation as opposed to psychological or other orientation.