Expectations,observations, and violations: Comparing their effects on course ratings

Knowledgeable observers generally agree that students can give reasonably unbiased assessments of their classes, as long as proper instruments and procedures are used. These same observers agree, however, that more research is needed to understand the subtle dynamics which affect evaluations. Students' expectations (obtained on the first day) and the violation of these expectations are two possible factors. Their effects on students' final interest and future intentions are compared with students' actual reports of the class given at the end of the semester (n=196). Regression analysis using a simultaneous entry of expectations, expectancy violations, and final reports shows that students' reports at the end of the course account for almost all of the explained variance in the course rating items.     

General or vocational English courses for Taiwanese students in vocational high schools? Students’ perceptions of their English courses and their relevance to their future career

Taiwanese vocational high schools (VHSs) deliver general English courses. This paper explores the extent to which these courses are perceived to be appropriately vocationally orientated. This focus gives rise to two main research questions: what are VHS students’ expectations from their English courses, and to what extent are they being met? The research identifies a mismatch between VHS students’ perceived needs from their English course and the actual course of study they receive, which is set by the Ministry of Education. VHS students have clear expectations that their English course will provide them with vocationally relevant knowledge and skills, but the English course they receive does not necessarily equip them for their future employment. Implications for government and educational institutions are explored, including recommendations that English curricula should be reviewed, and that steps need to be taken to ensure that policy goals are in fact delivered.     

Addressing the Transition to Tertiary Education in Engineering

The transition to university is considerably more complex for both students and staff than it was a few years ago. For example, class sizes and the cultural diversity of students have increased, while the academic ability of students has decreased. If we are to produce engineering professionals who possess the necessary attributes for lifelong learning, then there needs to be a paradigm shift in the way first‐year students are treated. To this end, an orientation programme designed to break the ice between students and staff and among students, and a staff‐student mentoring scheme have been implemented in the School of Mechanical, Manufacturing and Medical Engineering at the Queensland University of Technology. A new course unit, Technology and Society, designed specifically to improve the teamwork and communication skills of students, has also been implemented. This unit is designed to increase students’ awareness of the university's facilities and its expectations and to provide an overview of the many facets of the engineering discipline. Each programme has been considered to be a success by both students and staff. This paper emphasizes the need to accommodate the growing cultural and educational diversity of first‐year students, the impersonal feeling of a university, the ‘little fish in a big pond’ feeling, the feeling of not knowing any university staff, especially academics, and not knowing what is really expected of them, especially in terms of learning strategies and how their chosen field of study fits into the more global aspects of the community.     

Career choices and characteristics of criminal justice undergraduates

Four hundred undergraduate criminal justice students from twelve colleges and universities in seven states participated in an anonymous, written survey designed to determine career choices and expectations as well as other demographic information. Approximately half of the students surveyed indicated that they were pursuing a career in law enforcement. Almost one-third indicated that they had no career plans. We found that reasons for studying criminal justice vary by race and gender, as do career goals.     

Preparing a Data Scientist: A Pedagogic Experience in Designing a Big Data Analytics Course

In this article, we present an experiential perspective on how a big data analytics course was designed and delivered to students at a major Midwestern university. In reference to the MSIS 2006 Model Curriculum, we designed this course as a level 2 course, with prerequisites in databases, computer programming, statistics, and data mining. Students in the class were mostly seniors or at the graduate level, and had a strong technical and quantitative background. We include details of concepts covered in the course, as well as summaries of four major sample course assignments used. Some of the concepts covered include large‐scale data collection and management using the Hadoop ecosystem, stream mining, visual analytics, and social network analytics. Besides Hadoop, the course also introduced various IBM and Teradata big data tools. We show how the course modules align with the intended learning goals and course objectives. A post‐course survey indicated that the structure and organization of the course helped students clearly and concisely assimilate the course content.     

The Learning Styles,Expectations, and Needs of Online Students

Abstract. Each student comes to class with certain learning experiences, expectations, and needs that have to be addressed, and to which instructors need to be sensitive, to maximize the students' learning experiences. However, because of the unknown make-up of online classes, the characteristics of online students may be unclear, making it difficult to develop effective online courses. This study sought to establish learning styles, expectations, and needs of students taking an online course. Data were collected from a variety of student communications and the Myers-Briggs Type Inventory. Suggestions to accommodate identified learning styles, needs, and expectations of online students are presented.     

Educational goals and motives as possible mediators in the relationship between social support and academic achievement

Perceived social support has been widely recognized as having beneficial effects on a person’s development, and adolescence is no exception. The objective of this article is to go beyond this “stereotypical” vision of friendship by showing that social support does not always have a positive and direct effect on adolescents’ academic achievement. We sought to understand whether this relationship is mediated by the educational goals and motives that student value and pursue. If these values do not coincide with the expectations and values that the academic institution seeks to transmit, the influence of social support can become harmful, especially with regard to the students’ academic achievement. Data were collected by means of questionnaires from 676 junior high school students in 9th grade from contrasting academic institutions. We chose to observe each participant’s subjective point of view of three dimensions: social support, academic achievement, and educational goals and motives. The results showed that the relationship between social support and attention and involvement in class was negative and mediated by students’ goals. The adolescents with a high level of social support mainly pursued social goals and neglected achievement and future goals. Consequently, these students were less attentive and involved in class. The results also showed that social support was predictive of students’ investment and interest in personal work and success, but only when the students pursued achievement and future goals.     

A Surgical View of Anatomy: Perspectives from Students and Instructors

As curricular emphasis on anatomy in undergraduate medical education continues to evolve, new approaches to anatomical education are urgently needed to prepare medical students for residency. A surgical anatomy class was designed for third- and fourth-year medical students to explore important anatomical relationships by performing realistic surgical procedures on anatomical donors. Under the guidance of both surgeons and anatomists, students in this month-long elective course explored key anatomical relationships through performing surgical approaches, with the secondary benefit of practicing basic surgical techniques. Procedures, such as left nephrectomy, first rib resection for thoracic outlet syndrome, and carotid endarterectomy, were adapted from those used clinically by multiple surgical subspecialties. This viewpoint commentary highlights perspectives from students and instructors that suggest the value of a surgical approach to anatomical education for medical students preparing for procedure-oriented residencies, with the goals of: (1) describing the elective at the authors' institution, (2) promoting similar efforts across different institutions, and (3) encouraging future qualitative and quantitative studies of similar pedagogic efforts.     

Teacher expectations in a university setting: the perspectives of teachers

ABSTRACT

This study was designed to investigate the bases of teacher expectations in higher education. The first author interviewed 20 university teachers from an English-as-a-foreign-language course, exploring their expectations for the first-year undergraduates in their classes. The grounded theory method was adopted to analyse the data that had been collected. The results showed that for this sample of 20 teachers, student characteristics were important contributing factors to their expectations in the teachers’ university settings. The factors the teachers considered important included students’ (a) prior academic achievement, (b) motivation, (c) study skills, and (d) academic discipline. Also, teacher characteristics were found to be another major source of these university teachers’ expectations, including teachers’ (a) past teaching and learning experience and (b) teaching self-efficacy. The findings suggested that the bases of teacher expectations in higher education may differ from those at the elementary or secondary school level.     

Epistemic beliefs: Setting the standards for self-regulated learning

Relations were examined between epistemic beliefs, achievement goals, learning strategies, and achievement. We sought to empirically test Muis’ [Muis, K. R. (2007). The role of epistemic beliefs in self-regulated learning. Educational Psychologist, 42, 173–190] hypothesis that epistemic beliefs influence processes of self-regulated learning via the standards students set for learning once goals are produced. Two hundred one undergraduate students from an educational psychology course completed questionnaires designed to measure the various constructs. Students’ final grades were also collected at the end of the semester. Students’ recollections of course tasks revealed that their epistemic beliefs are activated during learning. Results from structural equation modeling revealed epistemic beliefs influenced the types of achievement goals students adopted, which subsequently influenced the types of learning strategies they used in their education course, and their achievement. Moreover, achievement goals mediated relations between epistemic beliefs and learning strategies, and learning strategies mediated relations between achievement goals and achievement.     

When and Why Are the Values of Physical Quantities Expressed with Uncertainties? A Case Study of a Physics Undergraduate Laboratory Course

The understanding of measurement is related to the understanding of the nature of science—one of the main goals of current international science teaching at all levels of education. This case study explores how a first-year university physics course deals with measurement uncertainties in the light of an epistemological analysis of measurement. The data consist of the course documents, interviews with senior instructors, and laboratory instructors’ responses to an online questionnaire. During laboratory work, uncertainties are expressed in the large majority of the measurements made by the students but only in less than half of their calculation results. The instructors’ expectations are that students systematically estimate uncertainties so that they become aware that measurements and calculations are never exact. However, since uncertainties are not specified for the values given in the laboratory guides, uncertainties are often missing from the results of students’ calculations. The potential side effects of students’ measurement understanding are discussed and suggestions for improvements are proposed.     

Feedforward strategies in the first-year experience of online and distributed learning environments

Feedforward is an educational strategy focusing on providing students with prior exposure to, and prior practise with assessment in order to clarify expectations and standards. Current research into feedforward has yet to fully consider the specificity of online and distributed learning environments. We have developed a feedforward-based approach to teaching a large first year prerequisite course in screen history involving the modified and critical use of exemplars and assessment guidance in ways designed to stimulate self and peer assessment throughout the course. Our focus is the improvement of task compliance, quality and criteria in order to stimulate meaningful engagement with assessment and enhanced student performance in the unit.     

Parental autonomy support,community feeling and student expectations as contributors to later achievement among adolescents

This longitudinal study examined the relationships among parental autonomy support, student intrinsic life goals (i.e. community feeling), student expectations for long-term educational attainment and later academic performance (measured by GPA) in 227 students in an ethnically and racially diverse high school. Hypotheses were tested with structural equation models, which included gender, parent education and prior GPA as control variables. As self-determination theory suggests, parental autonomy support was indirectly and positively related to academic performance via intrinsic life goals. Intrinsic life goals and student expectations were moderately and positively related and both contributed to growth in academic performance, which suggests that self-determination theory and expectancy-value theory provide additive insight in predicting educational achievement. Fifty per cent of the variance in intrinsic life goals was explained by parental autonomy support and 77% of the variance in later GPA was explained collectively by variables in the study. The way in which student expectations and intrinsic life goals work in concert to promote achievement should be examined in future intervention studies. The significant indirect effect of parental autonomy support on GPA via intrinsic life goals and student expectations suggests that students will benefit from parents fostering intrinsic life goals through autonomy supportive communication.     

How to persuade honors students to go the extra mile: creating a challenging learning environment

Although universities aim to challenge high-ability students to develop their talents to the full, the question of how to create such challenges remains unanswered. In this study, we examined six different honors courses to discover which factors in the learning environment specifically designed for high-ability students challenged these students and determined how such challenges were established. Perceived challenges (factors and intensity) in the different courses were identified from focus group interviews with students. The interviews were guided by a storyline method which retrospectively discussed students’ experiences of course activities. In addition, course materials and audio-recorded classes were analyzed to describe how challenge was established. Results revealed three challenge factors: autonomy, complexity, and teacher expectations, similar to the ones found in a previous, single-case study. Results showed that the greatest challenge was experienced when the three factors were simultaneously experienced in the learning environment. These three challenge factors were manifested in various and sometimes very subtle ways through course design (e.g. open structure of assignments) and class interactions (e.g. particular ways of questioning).     

Experiencing work as a communications professional: Students' reflections on their off-campus work practice

In order to ease the transition from the world of theuniversity to the world of work, it is of crucialimportance to provide university students withon-the-job skills and pre-professional workexperience. In the article, Finnish SpeechCommunication students' reflections on theirpre-professional practice in working life areinvestigated. The main purpose was to identifycritical factors affecting students' experiences andlearning outcomes of an off-campus practice period. Thestudy is based on reports by 70 students, analyzedqualitatively. The results indicate that whether thepracticum comes up to students' expectations dependson e.g. the following factors: the correspondencebetween the work-tasks and the student's studyprogram, the goal-orientedness of the work, thepossibility to commit oneself to work and to achieveset goals, challenges at work in general and invarious tasks, the supportiveness and attentiveness ofcolleagues and supervisor, a competent initialorientation by the supervisor on the first day, and anoptimal level of independence as well as a balancebetween goal-orientedness, supervision andindependence. For university students, a well-arrangedpracticum is not only an important part ofprofessional education, but at its best also a meansof personal development and growth.     

Enhancing Interdisciplinary Mathematics and Biology Education: A Microarray Data Analysis Course Bridging These Disciplines

BIO2010 put forth the goal of improving the mathematical educational background of biology students. The analysis and interpretation of microarray high-dimensional data can be very challenging and is best done by a statistician and a biologist working and teaching in a collaborative manner. We set up such a collaboration and designed a course on microarray data analysis. We started using Genome Consortium for Active Teaching (GCAT) materials and Microarray Genome and Clustering Tool software and added R statistical software along with Bioconductor packages. In response to student feedback, one microarray data set was fully analyzed in class, starting from preprocessing to gene discovery to pathway analysis using the latter software. A class project was to conduct a similar analysis where students analyzed their own data or data from a published journal paper. This exercise showed the impact that filtering, preprocessing, and different normalization methods had on gene inclusion in the final data set. We conclude that this course achieved its goals to equip students with skills to analyze data from a microarray experiment. We offer our insight about collaborative teaching as well as how other faculty might design and implement a similar interdisciplinary course.     

Social cognitive predictors of pre-service teachers’ technology integration performance

The main objective of the study was to examine interrelationships among social cognitive variables (self-efficacy, outcome expectations, and performance goals) and their role in predicting pre-service teachers’ technology integration performance. Although researchers have examined the role of these variables in the teacher-education context, the present study was an examination of the manner in which variables may jointly function to predict technology integration performance. The Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT) served as the theoretic framework. Participants were 111 pre-service teachers enrolled in an introductory instructional technology course. Findings revealed that SCCT predictions were largely supported when the freshman students were excluded from the analyses. Self-efficacy and outcome expectations were related to each other and both contributed to the prediction of performance.     

浅谈班集体活动的设计

班集体是学校进行教育和管理的基本单位,班集体建设的好坏对整个学校具有重要的影响和作用、对班级中每个学生的成长和发展具有直接的关系。活动是推动班集体向前发展和进步的动力、是实现集体目标的有效形式、是团结、教育学生的重要手段。为了取得良好的活动效果,应该对活动进行有效的设计。     

大班教学背景下增强大学生心理健康教育课程互动体验的探索

目前大学生心理健康教育课程普遍存在于大班教学背景下,加之在传统的课堂教学模式下,课堂互动不足,挫伤师生上课积极性,影响教学效果和质量。本研究以广东某高校某学期大学生心理健康教育课为实践载体,借助微助教平台探索如何增强课程互动体验,提升学生课堂参与度,丰富学生的体验度,以符合该课程设置的初衷。