Social engagement in a diversifying campus: a phenomenological exploration

With more non-local (Mainland China and overseas) students admitted into the universities of Hong Kong, the student population on campus is becoming much more diversified. This study was a phenomenological inquiry into the social engagement experiences of local and non-local Chinese students in their first year at a university in Hong Kong. Qualitative data was obtained from 10 focus groups. The findings suggested that the majority of the students in the study were active in social engagement and most achieved a sense of belonging to the university or its sub-communities. The culture in student communities played an important role in students' social engagement. It pushed students to become intensively involved in out-of-class activities and challenged them to reflect on the direction in which they would carry this historical legacy forward in the diversifying campus.     

Deleterious effects of psychotherapy and counseling in the schools

Providing individual and group counseling has become an identified role for school psychologists working in the school setting. There is an extensive research base that highlights positive outcomes and supports the use of a variety of counseling methods when working with children and adolescents. However, there may exist a host of other outcomes, including deleterious effects, when counseling school‐age children and adolescents. This article looks to identify and summarize some of the possible deleterious effects in school‐based counseling across a variety of disorders and to make school psychologists cognizant of possible negative outcomes when designing and implementing treatment plans. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Motivation in group assessment: a phenomenological approach to post-graduate group assessment

Whilst group work has many benefits for enhancing collaborative learning, it can cause anxiety in summative assessments when group members do not contribute equal effort. Increasing understanding of student perceptions of group assessment, and in particular their motivation to persevere to overcome the challenges, has the potential to lead to better assessment design and reduce dysfunctional behaviour. This exploratory study borrows from phenomenology to investigate the lived experience of a cohort of post-graduate journalism students at a UK university, who were required to work in small groups to produce a web-based, multimedia journal for a final summative assessment. Using the expectancy-value theory of motivation, this study examines whether students were motivated by the task, and how this might influence their perception of the group assessment experience. The study found that not only was the group motivated by this assessment design, but also, in contrast to much of the literature on group assessment, their experience of group work was defined by harmony, loyalty and an ‘all for one, one for all’ attitude. It is therefore proposed that student groups are less likely to be dysfunctional or dissatisfied with group assessment if the group expects to do well and values the task.     

Youth engagement in high schools: Developing a multidimensional, critical approach to improving engagement for all students

What keeps students interested and engaged in school? Unfortunately, in today’s climate of increased rigor in classrooms, we are simultaneously losing sight of the need to provide students with an education that is both challenging and stimulating. In this paper, we discuss youth disengagement and offer suggestions to improve our overall knowledge of academic engagement issues. We discuss the historical concept of engagement, more specifically, its shift from a uni-dimensional to multidimensional concept, and suggest that research concentrate on better understanding the interplay among setting and identity when examining issues of youth engagement in schools. Fundamentally, we strongly assert that engagement research needs to adopt a more critical stance that provides students with opportunities to examine and to critique the educational system in which they participate (or sometimes refuse to participate). Only when students see the purpose of engaging in schools, as students and agents of change, will engagement and students’ academics and lives improve.     

Cross-cultural counseling: A systematic approach to understanding the issues

Counseling theory and practice tend to be dominated by a European-American orientation. Cross-cultural counseling is advanced as an approach that transcends European dominance while focusing on the specific needs of African American, Asian and Pacific Islander, Hispanic/Latino, and Native American cultures. This paper reviews the major conceptual models, described by social scientists, and advances a more culturally sensitive, cross-cultural approach to conceptualizing counseling theory and practice when counseling members of large minority groups living in the United States.     

Patterns of motivating teaching behaviour and student engagement: a microanalytic approach

Positive student engagement is a prerequisite for students’ educational success. In this study, a microanalytic approach was used to explore patterns in teachers’ use of specific motivating teaching behaviours from the perspective of self-determination theory in relation to indicators of students’ positive engagement. The lessons of 52 teachers were observed and event-based coded. Results showed that specifically asking motivating questions and providing positive feedback and support during exercises were associated with subsequent positive student engagement. Unexpectedly, some demotivating teaching behaviours were also found to relate to positive student engagement, although to a lesser extent. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.

     

Breaking the cycle: a phenomenological approach to broadening access to post-secondary education

Over the past decades, there has been a substantial increase in post-secondary education participation in most Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and European Union countries. This increase, however, does not necessarily reflect a parallel equitable growth in post-secondary education, and early school leaving is still an issue of concern in particular regions and countries across the world. This paper presents a study on increasing participation in post-secondary education in Malta, the country with the one of the highest proportions of early school leaving in the European Union. The study was carried out in a region with one of the highest rates of early school leaving in the country, making use of a phenomenological approach as well as a resilient systems perspective to early school leaving. On the basis of students’ narratives, the study identifies a number of risk and protective factors in early school leaving and makes various suggestions on how to build more resilient systems to facilitate access to post-secondary education, particularly for students coming from low socio-economic, excluded backgrounds.     

Work evaluation and work adjustment for severely handicapped people: A counseling approach

Summary Following a brief statement on the background of severe disability, the vocational implications for people thus affected were discussed. Maslow's hierarchy of need theory was used as a basis for exploring the special needs of the severely disabled. In each of the needs in the hierarchy: physiological, safety, belongingness, esteem and self-actualization, an effort was made to relate these basic needs to five major vocational implications and to offer suggestions for rehabilitation staff on ways of assisting clients in moving towards freedom and independence in work adjustment and eventually in satisfactory employment.     

Student engagement and inclusive education: reframing student engagement

Engagement, or student engagement, is widely used in educational research and public discourse to refer to the problem of public education. The underlying ontological and epistemological assumptions buoying engagement are rarely, if ever, addressed by educational researchers. The ‘silent omission’ (Sidorkin 2014. “On the Theoretical Limits of Education.” In Making a Difference in Theory: The Theory Question in Education and the Education Question in Theory, edited by Julie Allan Gert Biesta and Richard Edwards, 121–137. New York: Routledge) of engagement’s metaphysics has implications for inclusive education. This paper finds that despite being employed with good intent, engagement operates in a paradigm of normativity. In a gesture of bifocality (Weis and Fine 2012. “Critical Bifocality and Circuits of Privilege: Expanding Critical Ethnographic Theory and Design.” Harvard Educational Review 82 (2): 173–201), I critique engagement discourse and its historical context to find that it reproduces a longstanding tradition of psychologising public problems (Fine and Cross 2015. “Critical Race, Psychology and Social Policy: Refusing Damage, Cataloguing Oppression, and Documenting Desire.” In Contextualizing the Costs of Racism, edited by A. Alvarez and H. Neville. Washington, DC: APA Publications), thereby displacing conversations about what may be the most influential issue of public education: social and economic inequality. A reframing of engagement as [student/teacher] engagement is proposed. Highlighted in the reframing is the educational relationship and the context in which it is nested. Mitigated is the pathologising and exclusionary effect of engagement discourse which operates within a dialectic of normal/engaged // ab/normal/disengaged.     

A wearables-based approach to detect and identify momentary engagement in afterschool Makerspace programs

Educational activities and programs associated with the Maker movement, which emphasizes creation of physical and digital artifacts as part of the learning experience, are presumed to be highly engaging for youth. However, there has been limited research examining what features of Maker learning activities are associated with youth engagement. We describe a research approach using wearable electrodermal activity sensors and wearable cameras to obtain data from two afterschool programs at a community Makerspace for adolescent girls (N = 12, 13). Using data obtained from these two sources along with daily survey data, we compare what is revealed from these different data sources. We observe a moderate correlation between electrodermal activity and engagement from survey responses. We also observe that activities emphasizing personal expression elicited engagement from many youth. From the EDA data and first-person video, we also identify 23 moments when groups of participants had several concurrent EDA responses suggesting high levels momentary engagement. Key features associated with those moments were opportunities for peer socialization, interactive instructional discourse, and physical making activities when objects were being assembled and manipulated.     

中国近代文化对两岸婚约制度影响——兼谈我国婚约制度的立法完善

婚约为债法及亲属法上之契约,在我国古代占有很重要地位,具有强大的法律约束力。近现代的新文化思想改变了旧婚约制度,并分别体现在南京国民政府时期和红色革命根据地的亲属法和婚姻法中。台湾地区现行婚约制度基本上传承了南京国民政府的婚约立法精神,而大陆对婚约问题不做明文规定,有其积极意义,但也造成现实中大量的婚约纠纷无法可依,不利于法制建设。传承近现代法文化思想,借鉴台湾地区立法经验,制定并完善我国婚约制度。     

The experience of pregnancy: a hermeneutical/phenomenological study

The aim of this study was to describe women''s experience of pregnancy. The setting was the Alternative Birth Center at Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Göteborg, Sweden, from 1996 to 1997. Anonymous diaries were written by 12 women and analyzed using a hermeneutical/phenomenological approach. The essential structure and interpretation of women''s experience of pregnancy can be expressed as “transition to the unknown,” which includes three themes: (1) meeting one''s life situation, (2) meeting something inevitable, and (3) preparing for the unknown.The essential structure and interpretation of women''s experience of pregnancy can be expressed as “transition to the unknown” …     

A phenomenological approach to experiences with technology: current state, promise, and future directions for research

In this paper I conceptualize experiences with technology as an object of study for educational technology research and propose phenomenology as a highly suitable method for studying this construct. I begin by reviewing existing research focusing on the construct of experiences with technology and the approaches utilized for its study. To augment this literature, I explain the phenomenological concept of experience and describe its utility for understanding experiences with technology. I propose the theoretical and methodological approach of phenomenology as a framework for developing a research agenda on experiences with technology and for unifying existing lines of research in this area. To illustrate the promise of this approach and to facilitate its application, I describe a research design consistent with the theoretical underpinnings of phenomenology, including methods for collecting and analyzing data as well as ethical and validity considerations specific to this research design. I conclude by identifying several possible research directions utilizing a phenomenological approach in educational technology to incite further research in this area.