INSTITUTIONAL STRUCTURES AND STUDENT ENGAGEMENT

A common finding in the literature is that institutional structures have little to no impact on student engagement and development. I argue that theory suggests peer ability (as measured by selectivity), institutional density, the differentiation of the curriculum, and the research orientation of the institution should all affect student engagement. Using the nationally representative Beginning Post-secondary Student survey, a non-linear selection on observables correction for selection bias, and a multilevel modeling approach, I find that institutional structures do affect student engagement in predictable and substantively significant ways.     

PROFESSORS OF COMMUNITY COLLEGE EDUCATION: CHANGES IN THEORETICAL AND PROFESSIONAL ORIENTATIONS

More than 80% of professors associated with the American Association of Community and Junior Colleges responded to a survey by the authors in 1980. The questionnaire was based on and the findings were compared with a 1972 study by Campbell and Newell. Trends in demographic data, career patterns, and professional orientations are documented and analyzed. University professors of community college education were 7.7 years older as a group in 1980 than they were in 1972; many other changes appear related to this trend. Fewer than 3% of faculty in this field remain at the level of assistant professor, while 61% have already achieved the rank of professor. As a whole, the group is more productive and somewhat more conservative. Some gains have been made in the representation of women (from 0 to 14%) and minorities (from 3 to 6%). With the maturing of this professional group has come related developments in professional orientations. Time invested in research and writing nearly doubled, and professors would like to do still more. Although they still wish to be remembered for having trained outstanding administrators, their desire to be remembered for writing a significant book has increased significantly. As the academic field of community education matures, its professorial members have turned increasingly to scholarly values.     

木芙蓉旧事

正有段时间,我常到成都出差,在宾馆的花园里居然看到了木芙蓉,早上经过的时候还是淡粉色的,午饭再看已经是深红。在我家乡也有,是三醉芙蓉,又名千面女郎。因为它清晨初开时为白色或粉红色,后逐渐变为深红,傍晚时变为紫红色,越开越艳。所谓"晓妆如玉暮如霞",就是指这个特色。看到深红的芙蓉,我忽然就想到了小时候家里给我订亲的女孩。娃娃亲这样的风俗现在是绝迹了,即使是我小时侯所在的乡村其实也已经不多见,但是     

SOCIAL SUPPORT AND BEHAVIORAL AND AFFECTIVE SCHOOL ENGAGEMENT: THE EFFECTS OF PEERS,PARENTS, AND TEACHERS

School engagement has long been seen as an important component of school completion, and research shows that social support in the home and school promotes engagement. However, many researchers have argued that it is not a unitary construct but rather a multifaceted phenomenon, and the role of peer social support has not been as well studied as support from parents and teachers. Our study examines the association of social support from parents, teachers, and peers with two forms of engagement: affective and behavioral. Data came from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development. Results indicate that although parent support was associated with higher levels of behavioral engagement, peer support was associated with higher levels of affective engagement.     

DYNAMICS OF ENGAGEMENT AND DISAFFECTION IN A SOCIAL STUDIES CLASSROOM CONTEXT

In this investigation, we replicated Skinner et al.’s study of the dynamics of engagement with a more diverse sample of Grades 6 and 7 students from a middle school with a large English learner (primarily Spanish‐speaking) student population. We tested dimensions of the self‐system model of motivational development in a specific academic domain (i.e., social studies). Some relationships found by Skinner and colleagues were supported, whereas others were not. Emotional engagement predicted changes in behavioral engagement and disaffection. The classroom context and students’ self‐perceptions predicted changes in engagement and disaffection. Students’ self‐perceptions also mediated the relation between teacher support and engagement and disaffection. None of these relations were moderated by language status.     

EXAMINATION OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ENGAGEMENT IN SCIENTIFIC ARGUMENTATION AND CONCEPTUAL KNOWLEDGE

Whereas there are some studies presenting the effects of argumentation on science knowledge development, there is still a need for research discovering the interrelationship between knowledge and argumentation. The purpose of this research was to investigate a possible relationship between students?? engagement in argumentation and their conceptual knowledge. A case study design was carried out for this research. The participants of the study were tenth graders studying in an urban all-girls school. There were 5 argumentations promoted in different contexts which were embedded through the dynamics chapter, for a 10-week period. Some of the conclusions drawn from the study are as follows: First, students?? quantity and quality of arguments improve through time as they get more involved with argumentation. Second, students?? knowledge does not improve instantly when they are involved with argumentation activities, that is, knowledge development in an argumentation process takes time. Third, students?? prior knowledge affects their participation in argumentation. Last, there are some patterns that indicate the relationship between argumentation and knowledge. However, students?? arguments and their knowledge do not develop at the same time.     

STILL WORKING AFTER AGE 70: OLDER PROFESSORS IN ACADEME

The purpose of this interview study was to examine the perceptions and experiences of tenured university professors who continue to work in their career jobs after age 70. The study utilized the case study method to let professors describe in their own voices the personal, professional, and institutional factors in their decision to keep working beyond the conventional retirement age and their plans for the future. The population under investigation was all tenured professors aged 70-74 at a major public research university, the institutions most likely to be impacted by the end of mandatory retirement (Hammond & Morgan, 1991). Content analysis of the interview tapes revealed the following themes: most professors continued to work because they enjoyed it, or felt that it was important to continue their work, perceived the overall atmosphere in their department and the university as positive, felt little institutional pressure to retire, and had no plans to retire. Economic factors played a relatively small role in continuing to work.     

LIFE SATISFACTION OF RETIRED PROFESSORS: THE CONTRIBUTION OF WORK,HEALTH, INCOME,AND LENGTH OF RETIREMENT

This study investigates the effects of work, health, income, and length of retirement on the life satisfaction of retired professors. The sample contains 90 professors retired from four midwestern colleges and universities. Results indicate that the life satisfaction of these professors was high. Their life satisfaction was enhanced by an opportunity to continue involvement in selected professional activities when this was desired. Good health and an adequate standard of living also contributed to life satisfaction.     

MEASURING ASPIRATIONS,BELONGING, AND PRODUCTIVITY IN SECONDARY STUDENTS: VALIDATION OF THE STUDENT SCHOOL ENGAGEMENT MEASURE

This article proposes a model of student school engagement, comprising aspirations, belonging, and productivity. From this model, items for the Student School Engagement Measure (SSEM) were developed. The SSEM was validated with data from 396 eighth graders in an urban school district. Utilizing structural equation modeling, the second‐order empirical model of the SSEM was found to fit the data well, to have good reliability for the three factors, and to be predictive of district‐identified risk factors and state standardized academic assessment results. These results suggest that the Student School Engagement Model and the SSEM may be useful tools for understanding which students might be at increased risk for school dropout and how to intervene to support school completion. Recommendations for practitioners and future research are given.     

A STRUCTURAL MODEL OF PARENT INVOLVEMENT WITH DEMOGRAPHIC AND ACADEMIC VARIABLES

Parental involvement is well documented as a significant contributor to the self‐efficacy and academic achievement of students. A structural equation model of parent involvement with family socioeconomic status, student gender, parents’ aspirations for their children, mathematics efficacy, and mathematics achievement was tested to examine whether parent involvement in the 10th grade remains relevant to achievement. A sample of data pertaining to 8,673 10th graders from the Educational Longitudinal Study was analyzed. The results indicated that the fit of the measurement model to the data was good (χ² = 3081.62, df = 87, p = .0, normed fit index [NFI] = .96, comparative fit index [CFI] = .96, root mean square error of approximation [RMSEA] = .064), as was the structural model (χ² = 3470.69, df = 94, p = .00, NFI = .96, CFI = .96, RMSEA = .065). Although the effect was small in magnitude, parent involvement in advising had a significant indirect relationship with mathematics achievement via mathematics efficacy of 10th graders.     

DARING TO LEAD WITH HOPE: ASSOCIATION OF PROFESSORS AND RESEARCHERS IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS NOVEMBER 3, 2002

Current relational crises in the global village and the damaging treatment of Mother Earth challenge religious educators to be leaders who will not shrink back from the responsibility of helping to create a better world. There is an intensifying call for these educators to carry out vocations that contribute to a sustainable communal and earth environment in which peace, love, justice, reconciliation, and the care of the environment reside. Religious educators are called on to dare to lead in ways that also kindle similar leadership in others. This address invites religious educators into a self-reflection process on their identity and vocation and proposes practices of hopefilled leadership that center on a quest for a better world.     

INTRINSIC MOTIVATION,LEARNING GOALS,ENGAGEMENT, AND ACHIEVEMENT IN A DIVERSE HIGH SCHOOL

Using structural equation models, with gender, parent education, and prior grade point average (GPA) as control variables, we examined the relationships among intrinsic motivation to learn, learning goals, behavioral engagement at school, and academic performance (measured by GPA) in 1,575 students in an ethnically and racially diverse high school. Intrinsic motivation to learn was indirectly and positively related to academic performance via classroom engagement. Seventy‐five percent of the variance in engagement and 33% of the variance in GPA were explained by variables in the study. Results were generally replicated when the model was tested separately with the 336 African American students and the 311 Latin@ students. The significant indirect effect of intrinsic motivation to learn on GPA via engagement, as well as the positive direct association between learning goals and academic performance, suggest that students will benefit from schools fostering intrinsic motivation to learn and learning goals.     

EFFECTS OF A PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM ON BEHAVIORAL ENGAGEMENT OF STUDENTS IN MIDDLE AND HIGH SCHOOL

Student behavioral engagement is a key condition supporting academic achievement, yet student disengagement in middle and high schools is all too common. The current study used a randomized controlled design to test the efficacy of the My Teaching Partner‐Secondary program to increase behavioral engagement. The program offers teachers personalized coaching and systematic feedback on teachers’ interactions with students, based on systematic observation of videorecordings of teacher‐student interactions in the classroom. The study found that intervention teachers had significantly higher increases, albeit to a modest degree, in student behavioral engagement in their classrooms after 1 year of involvement with the program compared to the teachers in the control group (explaining 4% of variance). In exploratory analyses, two dimensions of teachers’ interactions with students—their focus on analysis and problem solving during instruction and their use of diverse instructional learning formats—acted as mediators of increased student engagement. The findings offer implications for new directions in teacher professional development and for understanding the classroom as a setting for adolescent development.     

SCHOOL RACIAL CLIMATE AND THE ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT OF AFRICAN AMERICAN HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS: THE MEDIATING ROLE OF SCHOOL ENGAGEMENT

This investigation utilized an integrative model of development for ethnic minority children and a process model of engagement to explore whether three dimensions of school engagement (behavioral, emotional, and cognitive) mediated relationships between school racial climate, academic performance, and educational aspirations. A total of 139 African American students were recruited from a high school in the southeastern United States. Findings revealed an indirect association between perceptions of racial fairness and academic achievement indicators through behavioral and cognitive engagement. Behavioral and cognitive engagement also mediated relationships between youths’ perceived peer discrimination and academic achievement indicators. No significant indirect associations between teacher discrimination and academic achievement through school engagement dimensions were found. Study limitations, future directions, and implications are discussed.     

CIVIC ENGAGEMENT AND THE BABY BOOMER GENERATION: RESEARCH,POLICY AND PRACTICE PERSPECTIVES Edited by Laura B. Wilson and Sharon P. Simson

A unique development program was designed to assist faculty in integrating gerontological concepts in selected undergraduate courses. The disciplines of social services, human performance, psychology, nutrition, audiology, and nursing were targeted for the program. The faculty development program took place in four phases over a 17‐month period. In Phase 1, faculty members studied theoretical concepts in gerontology relevant to their academic discipline. During Phase 2, faculty members obtained practical experience in gerontological settings to complement the knowledge gained in the first phase. In Phase 3, the faculty developed instructional units for their courses based on their Phase 1 and 2 experiences. During Phase 4 the faculty pilot tested, implemented, and revised the curricular materials. In addition, Phase 4 included opportunities for each faculty member to develop a research agenda for the continued study of gerontology. As a result of knowledge gained in the project, 10 faculty members developed SO instructional units, which were integrated into existing undergraduate courses. Approximately 300 students demonstrated significant gains in knowledge in gerontological concepts during the first semester of implementation. It is estimated that continued use of the modules will result in more than 800 students per year being exposed to gerontological concepts.     

PREDICTORS OF ACHIEVEMENT IN AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDENTS AT RISK FOR ACADEMIC FAILURE: THE ROLES OF ACHIEVEMENT VALUES AND BEHAVIORAL ENGAGEMENT

The achievement gap between African American and European American youth is a pervasive problem in the United States. This study explored how achievement values and behavioral engagement affect the academic attainment of an academically at‐risk sample of 167 African American youth in late elementary school. Results indicate that achievement values do not have a significant influence on engagement or achievement in late elementary school. However, behavioral engagement significantly influenced math achievement from Grades 4 to 5. The implications of these findings are discussed.