Are contextual and designed student–student interaction treatments equally effective in distance education?

This systematic review draws from and builds upon the results of a meta-analysis of the achievement effects of three types of interaction treatments in distance education: student–student, student–teacher, and student–content (Bernard et al., Review of Educational Research, 79(3), 1243–1289, 2009). This follow-up study considers two forms of student–student interaction treatments, contextual interaction and designed interaction. Typical contextual interaction treatments contain the necessary conditions for student–student interaction to occur, but are not intentionally designed to create collaborative learning environments. By contrast, designed interaction treatments are intentionally implemented collaborative instructional conditions for increasing student learning. Our meta-analysis compared the effect of these two types of interaction treatments on student achievement outcomes. The results favored designed interaction treatments over contextual interaction treatments. Examples of designed interaction treatments and a discussion of study results and their potential implications for research and instruction in distance education and online learning are presented.     

Are federal student loan accountability regulations effective?

Within the education sector, accountability regulations have been used with the intended purpose of improving student outcomes. In higher education, one such regulation aims to improve the ability of borrowers to repay their student loans by placing sanctions on institutions with excessive student loan defaults. This paper examines whether student loan accountability regulations were able to (1) lower student loan defaults, and (2) address the broader objective of improving repayment ability, by exploiting a change to the period in which the regulation’s performance measure was monitored. I find that the change to the regulation resulted in less student loan defaults at for-profit colleges. I also find that this reduction in student loan defaults resulted in a short-term improvement in repayment ability at for-profit, but not nonprofit, institutions.     

Bias in student evaluations: Are my peers out to get me?

The use of peer evaluations to evaluate performance is commonplace, especially in higher education. Yet, researchers and educators have long expressed concerns about the accuracy of such ratings. While research has found student peer evaluations to be consistent with instructor evaluations, rater bias is inherent in all evaluations, and students are not exempt from this. This study examines task completion and identity threat to determine if experience and identity play a role in shaping student peer evaluations. A sample of MBA students evaluated their peers before and after completing a course presentation. Results showed that students’ peer evaluations were significantly “lower” or more critical after having completed the presentation themselves. This study illuminates the importance of experience and training in the implementation of performance evaluations.     

Convenience or credibility? A study of college student online research behaviors

The purpose of this study was to investigate where students turn for course-related assignments, whether an ordered pattern could be described in terms of which sources students turn to and how students evaluated the information they chose to use. Data were drawn from open-ended questionnaires (n = 282). Semantic network analysis was conducted using CATPAC, artificial neural network software. Results verify previous findings that students turn to the Internet before the library, but a deeper investigation revealed different preferences for study versus project-related research. Specifically, using search engines or Wikipedia was a pre-stage, rather than a final destination, for project work. Interestingly, students were relatively confident in their abilities to discern courses using the Internet. Recommendations for promoting information literacy, as well as recommendations for improving library resource use, are included.     

Students’ interpersonal trust and attitudes towards standardised tests: exploring affective variables related to student assessment

Cognitive and psychometric variables have directed research on student test performance. However, student learning involves a substantial affective component. The objective of this study was to explore the relationship between two kinds of affective variables – interpersonal trust and attitudes towards standardised tests – likely to underlie student test performance. We also examined the effect of a print media report on students’ trust and attitudes towards testing. Using structural equation modelling, we investigated the responses of 206 university students to a modified version of the Test Attitude Survey and Interpersonal Trust Scale. One notable result indicated that variation in students’ attitudes about the effort expended on tests was explained by their interpersonal trust and their attitudes towards the value placed on tests. Viewed through the lens of expectancy theory, these results suggest that affective variables need to be more fully considered when considering practice and generating policy to improve student test performance.     

Are Student Protests in Arab States Caused by Economic and Political Grievances? Empirical Evidence from the 2006–07 Arab Barometer

We investigate the nature of protests by students (age 18 and older) in Algeria, Jordan, Morocco, and Yemen by using subsamples of students from nationally representative and acclaimed public opinion data (the 2006–07 Arab Barometer). We find between 22.1% (Jordan) and 54.7% (Yemen) participated in either the signing of petitions, or marching in street protests, or both between the years 2003–07. To explain student protest participation, we draw from the political economy literature to test four grievance-based hypotheses that link protest to student perceptions on the performance of the economy, personal family socioeconomic status, political exclusion, and preference for democracy. Ordered probit regression analyses indicate that students protest for different reasons in the four countries. We find statistical evidence that student protests are associated with grievances about the economy (Algeria and Morocco) and lack of democracy (Algeria only). Joint hypothesis tests reveal that the four grievances jointly matter in Algeria, Morocco, and Yemen but not Jordan.     

Are effective teachers like good parents? Teaching styles and student adjustment in early adolescence

This study examined the utility of parent socialization models for understanding teachers' influence on student adjustment in middle school. Teachers were assessed with respect to their modeling of motivation and to Baumrind's parenting dimensions of control, maturity demands, democratic communication, and nurturance. Student adjustment was defined in terms of their social and academic goals and interest in class, classroom behavior, and academic performance. Based on information from 452 sixth graders from two suburban middle schools, results of multiple regressions indicated that the five teaching dimensions explained significant amounts of variance in student motivation, social behavior, and achievement. High expectations (maturity demands) was a consistent positive predictor of students' goals and interests, and negative feedback (lack of nurturance) was the most consistent negative predictor of academic performance and social behavior. The role of motivation in mediating relations between teaching dimensions and social behavior and academic achievement also was examined; evidence for mediation was not found. Relations of teaching dimensions to student outcomes were the same for African American and European American students, and for boys and girls. The implications of parent socialization models for understanding effective teaching are discussed.     

Environmental projects of Jewish and Arab youth in Israel: the adult leaders’ views

Socio‐environmental projects involving Arab and Jewish youth in Israel are uncommon. In this study, we interviewed 16 adult leaders of two projects that were carried out in the Galilee in northern Israel, to better understand the views of the leaders and their motives. The two projects focused on mutual environmental issues and dealt with social, cultural, and political aspects with respect to the environmental context. The participants were teachers and principals of the students who participated in the projects and facilitators of two environmental organizations. We found diverse views with respect to environmental education, local environmental issues, and possible solutions. The Arab adults expressed stronger attachment to the local environment than the Jewish ones. The major projects’ goals according to the leaders included: (improving) knowledge, awareness, and environmental behavior of the students and their communities; an opportunity for taking part in community collaboration and action; an opportunity for multicultural interaction; and meaningful long‐term learning in the outdoors. Our findings highlight the importance of identifying the views of educators of diverse cultures in order to carry out future successful multicultural environmental projects. Our findings also suggest adopting critical pedagogy of place while designing and implementing such projects in sensitive regions such as Israel.     

Explaining variation in student efforts towards using math and science knowledge in engineering contexts

Previous research suggests that in classes that take an integrated approach to science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education, students tend to engage in fulfilling goals of their engineering design challenges, but only inconsistently engage with the related math and science content. The present research examines these inconsistences by focusing on student engagement, or effort, towards math and science concepts while working on an engineering challenge, through the lens of expectancy-value theory. Specifically, we examine how students’ perceptions of the value of math and science and expectancy for success with the math and science relate to the efforts they put towards using math and science while working on engineering challenges. Our results suggest that subjective task value significantly predicts efforts towards both math and science, whereas neither expectancy, nor the interaction between expectancy and value predicted effort. We argue that integrated learning environments need to help students understand how the domains of math, science, and engineering support their work in fulfilling the engineering project design goals. In other words, we argue that we, as educators, must help students to recognise the value of each of the domains addressed within STEM integrated learning environments. This paper discusses strategies for accomplishing this goal.     

Why Brazil fell behind in college education?

Brazil fell behind in higher education attainment for the cohorts born in the 1950s and 1960s. We jointly model educational choices, labor force participation and wages, and compute the average, marginal and internal rate of returns to schooling after controlling for changes in ability composition at all levels of education. We find very high returns to college, which indicate that the disappointing trend in higher education could reflect binding credit constraints, psychic costs or uncertainty about future earnings gains from schooling.     

Unpacking teacher candidates’ decision-making and justifications in dilemmatic spaces during the student teaching year

Learning to teach is a complex process that hinges on teacher candidates’ personal experiences, values, beliefs and characteristics, as well as the contexts they are exposed to. Student teaching as a transitional period may create dilemmas for teacher candidates, who are new to the profession and still learning about what it means to be a teacher. Thus, this study examined the dilemmas experienced by a group of Taiwanese teacher candidates during the student teaching phase. Using the framework of dilemmatic spaces, we identified the sources of their dilemmas and the decisions they made towards the dilemmatic situations and further examined how they justified their decisions. Our findings suggest that conflicting ideologies and teacher candidates’ identities as student teachers are the main sources of their dilemmas. In response to the dilemmas, teacher candidates showed different decision-making trajectories that revealed the different actions and justifications they took within the dilemmatic space.     

University–school partnerships: student teachers’ evaluations across nine partnerships in Israel

This article presents and discusses the findings of a study which focused on student teachers’ evaluation of their practice teaching in the context of a university–school partnership model integrated for the first time into the academic programme of a university teacher education department in Israel. A questionnaire was developed to examine the contribution of the major curricular components of the partnership for student teachers’ experience of learning to teach, as evaluated by the student teachers themselves. The questionnaire was delivered to 119 student teachers placed in 9 selected school–university partnerships. The findings of the study underscore the added value of supporting different kinds of mentoring frameworks within university–school partnerships. The international significance of the study is discussed with a focus on implications for emergent tensions, dilemmas and connections between local and global forms of university–school partnerships.     

More students of better quality? Effects of a mathematics and physics aptitude test on student performance

This paper examines whether subject-specific admission tests may allow Swedish higher education institutions to admit better-performing students. The performance of students admitted via a mathematics and physics aptitude test was reviewed with a focus on activity, retention, and credits earned, and the results were compared with students admitted in traditional ways, such as secondary school grade point averages (GPA). The results show that the students admitted in the test quota show a higher activity rate as well as a higher retention rate than most other students, but that they are not as successful as the GPA quota students in acquiring their intended credits. It is concluded that subject-specific admission tests seem to entail higher student motivation and that they therefore may be a valuable instrument to supplement traditional admission instruments. The observed differences in the study have generated a number of hypotheses that would need further study to fully understand the merits of different admission instruments.     

Are teachers biased when nominating students for gifted services? Evidence from Kazakhstan

The purpose of this experimental, vignette study was to analyze whether certain demographic characteristics of students (i.e. gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status) influence secondary education teachers in referring students for gifted services in Kazakhstan. A sample of 132 teachers were randomly assigned to one of eight profiles describing a typical gifted student with particular demographics and requested to indicate how strongly they believed the student should or should not be recommended for gifted services. Results evidenced that gender, ethnicity, and SES did not influence the Kazakhstani teachers’ referrals. The implications of teacher nominations in students’ identification for gifted programs and the discussion on the role of gifted education as perceived by school teachers in Kazakhstan and elsewhere are provided.     

Moving towards inclusive education in Cyprus?

Within the last decade, the government of Cyprus has encouraged and supported the education of children assessed as having special needs into the mainstream educational system. With the existing arrangements, however, many pupils who experience difficulties within schools (and many of those are pupils who have been integrated from special schools) are marginalized or even excluded from teaching. This paper looks at the existing arrangements of special education in Cyprus by analysing local practice to identify barriers to inclusion, to consider ways of improving schools and classrooms in relation to policy‐making, and to see how to go forward towards inclusive education. Using four stories from the author’s involvement with one school, and reflecting on them, the author presents what was seen as barriers to providing more inclusive education.     

Another look at college student’s ratings of course quality: data from Penn State student surveys in three settings

This study assessed the relationships of student attributes, course characteristics and course outcomes to college students’ ratings of course quality in three types of settings. The analysis utilised data from online surveys of samples of college students conducted in 2011 and 2012 at the Pennsylvania State University. Included in the analysis were: (1) 1805 students at the main campus; (2) 1453 students at 19 smaller satellite campus locations of the university scattered across the state; and (3) 522 students participating in online degree programmes through Penn State’s World Campus. Students were asked to rate the quality of instruction they received in a randomly selected course in which they had been enrolled during the previous semester, and to respond to a number of questions about the course, the instructor’s behaviour and themselves. The relationships of these factors to how students rated the course were assessed for subjects in the three study settings. In all three settings, student and course characteristics, course difficulty and amount of required work had little effect on course ratings. Grade received was modestly related to course rating. However, instructor’s use of selected recommended pedagogical practices and students’ perceptions of how much they felt they learned were by far the strongest correlates of students’ course evaluations. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

Are students really connected? Predicting college adjustment from social network usage

The rapid growth in popularity of social networking sites has spurred research exploring the impact of usage in a variety of areas. The current study furthered this line of research by examining the relationships between social network usage and adjustment to college in the academic, social, personal-emotional and university affiliation domains. Realising the number of students with social networking accounts, some universities have developed strategic plans for social media. Thus, this study also compared two universities, one with a social media strategic plan and one without, to determine if the planning process had an influence on students. Results indicated that social network usage was related to college adjustment. Specifically, those students who reported higher rates of social media use reported lower levels of adjustment to college in all domains. However, there were no differences between the two universities, indicating that having a social media strategic plan does not influence students in the area of college adjustment. These results are discussed in light of retention rates and changing practices within higher education.