Assessing the Effectiveness of a College Freshman Seminar Using Propensity Score Adjustments

Researchers investigated the impact that a first-year college experience course had on students?? first-year grade point averages (GPAs) and retention rates. A sample of 109 first-year students enrolled in the course was compared to a sample of 326 students from the same university who had not taken the course. The goals of the experience course were to reduce attrition, increase grade point averages, and enhance academic skills. Without accounting for selection bias, those who took the course had similar retention rates and lower GPAs than those who did not take the course. After matching on propensity scores, the negative effects of the program on GPA were nullified and those in the program were more likely to enroll for a second year. Although the benefits from the course were weak, the positive impact of the program was more apparent after accounting for individual differences.     

基于E-learning的大学英语听力学习需求的调查研究

大学英语听力教学是大学英语教学中重要组成部分,如何充分利用现代信息技术,采用基于E-learning的大学英语听力教学模式倍受关注。笔者对非英语专业本科生在E-learning下对英语听力学习的需求进行了分析,发现学生在英语学习中使用听力技能少是因为他们认为自己的听能差,提高听力技能的需求最大,虽然多数学生使用互联网,但E-learning英语学习中发挥的作用有限,用于英语听力训练的则更少,根据数据分析结果,本文为大学英语听力教学改革提供了一些启示。     

An investigation of the college and career counseling needs of economically disadvantaged,minority gifted students

This study is an investigation of the college and career counseling needs of economically disadvantaged, academically gifted minority students. Two groups of students were studied and compared ‐ one group of 50 low‐income students, predominantly minority, who were chosen for a special college counseling program, and a second group of 42 middle to high income students, predominantly Asian and Caucasian, who were participating in a summer academic program. Students were compared on college plans and preparations, aspirations and expectations about higher education, support from others, motivation, values, and career interests and maturity. Results showed that the gifted disadvantaged students had lower educational aspirations, felt somewhat less prepared for college and less confident about being admitted, had unrealistic ideas about how to finance college, and perceived that college life would be more frightening and lonely compared to nondisadvantaged students. Student groups were similar in motivation to attend college, support from significant others and values. Disadvantaged students had better skills related to selecting a career but expressed less confidence in making a career decision. The results suggest a need for differentiated college counseling programs for disadvantaged minority students.     

轮滑教学中造成运动损伤的原因及其预防

作为一项新兴时尚运动,轮滑进入课堂也只是近几年的事.因为该项运动的特点,学生在运动中极易受伤.针对这一现状,作者对怀化学院04、05级选修轮滑课学生运动损伤的情况进行了调查,认为不能掌握正确的运动技术、准备活动不充分、场地器材的质量较差、身体机能欠佳是发生运动损伤的主要原因,并针对上述原因提出了相关的预防措施.     

轮滑教学中造成运动损伤的原因及其预防

作为一项新兴时尚运动,轮滑进入课堂也只是近几年的事.因为该项运动的特点,学生在运动中极易受伤.针对这一现状,作者对怀化学院04、05级选修轮滑课学生运动损伤的情况进行了调查,认为不能掌握正确的运动技术、准备活动不充分、场地器材的质量较差、身体机能欠佳是发生运动损伤的主要原因,并针对上述原因提出了相关的预防措施.     

Inclusive instruction and learning for deaf students in postsecondary education

This article explores how students who are deaf and their instructors experience mainstream college classes. Both quantitative and qualitative procedures were used to examine student access to information and their sense of belonging and engagement in learning. Instructors were asked to discuss their approach to teaching and any instructional modifications made to address the needs of deaf learners. Results indicate that deaf students viewed classroom communication and engagement in a similar manner as their hearing peers. Deaf students were more concerned about the pace of instruction and did not feel as much a part of the 'university family' as did their hearing peers. Faculty generally indicated that they made few if any modifications for deaf students and saw support service faculty as responsible for the success or failure of these students. We discuss results of these and additional findings with regard to barriers to equal access and strategies for overcoming these barriers.     

Reasons Not to Cheat,Academic-Integrity Responsibility,and Frequency of Cheating

The authors investigated the relations among reasons students gave for why they would not cheat in response to a cheating vignette, self-reported cheating, and the extent to which students take responsibility for promoting academic integrity. The authors surveyed 1,086 graduate and undergraduate students. Students who said they would not cheat because of punitive consequences were more likely to report that they cheated in classes and took less responsibility for promoting academic integrity. Students whose reasons related to the value of learning, personal character, and/or it being simply not right reported less cheating and took more responsibility for academic integrity. Academic-integrity responsibility correlated with less cheating. Results are discussed in terms of the effectiveness of punishment and the significance of internalizing integrity standards.     

Increasing Access to Higher Education Among Low-Income Students: The Washington State Achievers Program

The purpose of this study was to assess how a comprehensive precollege intervention and developmental program among low-income high school students contributed to college enrollment outcomes measured in 2006. Our focus was on the Fifth Cohort of the Washington State Achievers (WSA) Program, which provides financial, academic, and college preparation support to 500 high school students who come from the lowest 35% of Washington state income levels. One important feature of the WSA Program is that it provided funding for complete high school curriculum reform among 16 Washington high schools that have a high prevalence of low-income students. The data set contained three groups of students from these 16 high schools: Funded Achievers who were part of the WSA Program and received funding for college; Nonfunded Achievers who were part of the WSA Program and but did not receive funding for college; and Nonrecipients who were neither part of the WSA Program nor received funding for college. Results from generalized multinomial logistic models found two trends (a) early and continuous financial support for college along with being active in the WSA Program nearly guarantees enrollment in college and increases enrollment in 4-year and highly selective colleges; and (b) even in the absence of financial support for college there are still quantifiable and positive effects on college-going for just participating in the WSA Program and receiving its abundant nonfinancial resources and support. These results persist even with strong controls for selection, background, academic, financial, aspiration, and school-level variables.     

A MODEL FOR RACIAL AWARENESS TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN INTEGRATED SCHOOLS

When they graduate I want them to feel, “I went through a real thing, not an approximation of college, but I went through college and that means something!” (Adjunct Instructor)

This article explores the complexity of providing an academically rigorous college education to adult students enrolled in a union-supported worker education program affiliated with a large urban public university. The author examines differences in student and faculty perspectives on academic rigor and considers how students' lack of academic preparation intersects with institutional constraints to impact academic standards. She examines the role of race, ethnicity, class, and gender in determining academic expectations and outcomes and explores the complex and, at times, conflicting relationship between care and academic rigor. She highlights the crucial role of institutional constraints in hindering the implementation of rigorous education for academically under-prepared students. The author argues that high academic standards are an issue of educational equity for working class students of color and are integral to the social justice mission of the worker education program.     

What a difference mentoring makes: service learning and engagement for college students

Colleges are increasingly interested in ways to better engage students in their academic careers. This article reports 20 college students' experiences as mentors for at‐risk fourth‐graders through a mentoring program called The Learning Connection (TLC), run by the Community Services Office at Moravian College. The study describes students' voluntary participation in service learning activities as a source of student engagement, the characteristics of the TLC mentoring program, the process by which student mentors reported their experiences over the course of the academic year, and the benefits of the mentoring program through the eyes of the college student mentors. At the beginning of the mentoring experience, mentors reported that the primary reasons for mentoring were to make a difference in a child's life and supplement classroom learning. At the end of the academic year, mentors reported that mentoring taught them important lessons about children, themselves, community work and the value of mentoring. Mentor feedback supports mentoring, specifically, and service learning, generally, as a source of student engagement for college students.     

Supplemental Instruction Online: As Effective as the Traditional Face-to-Face Model?

Supplemental Instruction (SI) is a well-recognized model of academic assistance with a history of empirical evidence demonstrating increases in student grades and decreases in failure rates across many higher education institutions. However, as college students become more accustomed to learning in online venues, what is not known is whether an SI program offered online could benefit students similarly to SI sessions that occur in face-to-face settings. The in-person (traditional) SI program at California State University San Marcos has demonstrated increases in grades and lower fail rates for courses being supported in science and math. Students enrolled in four biology courses who participated in online SI received increases in academic performance similar to the students in the courses who attended traditional SI. Both the online and traditional SI participating students had higher course grades and lower fail rates as compared to students who did not participate in either form of SI. Self-selection, as measured by past cumulative college grade point average, did not differ between students who attended either form of SI or who did not attend. Student perceptions of online SI were generally positive and appeared to offer an alternative path to receive this valuable academic assistance for some students. Overall, results are promising that the highly effective traditional model can be translated to an online environment.     

The Willed Body Donor Interview project: Medical student and donor expectations

The Anatomical Donations Program at the University of Michigan Medical School (UMMS) has begun a multiphase project wherein interviews of donors will be recorded and later shown to medical students who participate in the anatomical dissection course. The first phase of this project included surveys of both current UMMS medical students and donors concerning their perceptions of such a program. A five‐question survey administered via Qualtrics software was electronically mailed to all current medical students at UMMS, and a survey was mailed to registered and potential donors requesting information from the UMMS on anatomical donations. A total of 224 medical student responses (response rate 33%) and 54 donor responses (response rate 27%) were received. Seventy‐four percent of students and 81% of donors reported they would participate in this program if it existed. Students and donors supported the implementation of this program for varying reasons, though many felt strongly they would not want to participate in a donor interview program. These qualitative results support those of previous studies that show a majority of students desire a closer personal relationship with the donor, and these are the first results to be reported on donor perceptions of a donor interview program. Although many students and donors are in favor of instituting this program, others feel strongly that such an experience could be traumatic. The causes of these differing reactions need to be further explored, and the opinions of those who object to this study will be respected by maintaining voluntary participation in future phases of this study. Anat Sci Educ 6: 90–100. © 2012 American Association of Anatomists.     

A skill development program for native students: Preliminary results

The increasing enrolment of Native students has not been matched by increases in success or retention rates. A skill development program designed for support service delivery to high risk students was provided for Native students in a liberal arts university. Assessment of the program in terms of academic performance, a demographic and perceived problem questionnaire, and anecdotal evidence resulted in support for continuation of the program and in planned modification of the orientation component.Although there has been a gratifying increase over the last decade in the enrolment of Canadian Natives in post-secondary programs (Sloan, 1981), this trend has not been followed by an equally increased success rate. Rather, Native students have exhibited high attrition rates paralleling the well-documented rates found in the primary and secondary school system (Sealey, 1980). In light of the lack of evidence for the effectiveness of traditionally-delivered student support services for Native students, efforts have been made to develop programs for Native students prior to admission (Grindstaff, 1970) or for those enrolled in a professional program (Read, 1983). The results of these special programs are encouraging, and consistent with the concept of special service delivery systems for high risk students (Smith et al., 1981).The present paper will examine the results of the first year of operation of a skill development program for Native students in a liberal arts university.     

Effectiveness of peer tutors vs. resource teachers

The purpose of this study was to determine whether mildly handicapped students working on a one-to-one basis with tutors would show a greater academic gain than students working in a small group with the resource teacher. By using a pretest-posttest control design it was found that after a three-month period, students who had tutors did show a more significant gain in reading (especially in the area of reading recognition). Teachers advised that no more than two tutors from one classroom be assigned to the tutor program, and teachers further felt that they could not supervise more than two tutorial pairs.     

Validating culturally diverse students: Toward a new model of learning and student development

Conclusion This study demonstrated that nontraditional students, no matter how fragile, can be transformed into full members of the college academic and social community. The importance of this finding cannot be over stated, for it points to real hope for students who do not see themselves as college material or who feel that college life has little or nothing to do with the realities from which they come. What is needed to transform these students is for faculty, administrators, and counselors to fully engage in the validation of students and to recognize that not all students can be expected to learn or to get involved in institutional life in the same way. Diversity in nature is a strength. So is diversity among college students. The challenge is how to harness that strength, and how to unleash the creativity and exuberance for learning that is present in all students who feel free to learn, free to be who they are, and validated for what they know and believe.Laura Rendon has a Ph.D from the University of Michigan. She is currently an associate professor in the Division of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at Arizona State University. She studies instructional and institutional issues related to the success of minority students, particularly Hispanic students and two-year colleges.     

Does study abroad affect student academic achievement?

The numbers of UK students choosing to study abroad for a period has increased steadily over the years, with many students citing academic, professional, linguistic and cultural reasons as their key motivations. However, while there is an abundance of literature on the advantage of study abroad (SA) for linguistic learning, there is less known about the academic impact of studying abroad. In addition, because SA is largely a process of self-selection, this makes it difficult to derive unbiased estimates of its impact on academic achievement. Using data on students from a London-based Russell Group university, and categorising SA students as those who participated in credit-seeking SA programmes through Erasmus or bilateral/multilateral agreements with partner universities, this paper uses individual fixed effects to compare the post-SA grades for students who sojourned with their expected grades had they not sojourned, as well as with their non-SA counterparts. The results are quite robust across subgroups and indicate that grades in year 3 are less than expected for the SA group, given their pre-sojourn grades. To tackle the problem of self-selection, outcomes for SA students were compared to the group who applied but did not eventually study abroad, and to the outcomes for students who did not apply.     

Applied and academic A levels: is there really a need for the applied track in UK further education?

The term ‘applied track’ in UK further education has been used to refer to the applied A level, the vocational, coursework-based version of the traditional academic A level. Vocational and coursework-based courses are often criticised for being easier than academic courses, for only attracting students who do not satisfy the requirements to take academic courses and for not developing in students the skills they need to be successful in higher education. This paper considers the extent to which these criticisms may be justified and explores the reasons why students chose to take an applied A level. The study involved 666 students at a large, mixed sex sixth form college in the UK, who were taking both applied and academic A levels. Although statistical analysis showed that students on the applied course performed worse than students on two academic courses once their different GCSE scores had been accounted for, it was also found that the applied students were relatively well qualified, that they were generally well motivated and hard working, and that they were extremely satisfied with the course. Finally, it is suggested that perhaps universities are misguided in assuming that applied courses do not develop in students the skills that they need to be successful in higher education.     

Effect of Students' After-School Activities on Teachers' Academic Expectancies

Teacher expectancies can have an impact on students' academic achievement. These expectancies can be based on diverse student characteristics, only one of which is past academic performance. The present study investigated three student individual differences that teachers may use when forming academic expectancies: the sex of the student, the family socioeconomic status (SES) of the student, and the student's after-school activities. Results indicated teachers held higher grade, graduation, and college attendance expectancies for females than for males and for middle-SES than low-SES students. Also, students who participated in extracurricular activities were expected to achieve more academically than either students who were employed after school or who did nothing after school. The latter two groups did not elicit different teacher expectancies. Interactions revealed that (a) lowest expectations were held for low-SES males who did nothing after school and (b) the difference in graduation expectancies between the SES groups was only half as great for students who took part in extracurricular activities than it was for students who had no involvements after school or who had jobs. Copyright 2000 Academic Press.     

Field‐dependent and Field‐independent Conceptualisations of Various Instructional Methods with an Emphasis on CAI: a qualitative analysis

Learning preferences differences and similarities of field‐dependent/independent college students were investigated with an emphasis on the usage of a computer‐assisted instruction (CAI) program designed for an ornamental horticulture class. The study was undertaken to improve the quality of a CAI program and the quality of instruction within the course. After administration of the Group Embedded Figures Test (GEFT) instrument, qualitative interviews further investigated how each participant conceptualised their learning process. The findings were congruent with the theory of field dependency. In addition, results indicated that field‐independent students felt that using CAI was beneficial, but may prove to be more advantageous with provided structure. In contrast, field‐dependent students did not feel there was benefit in using the CAI program, but with provided structure, benefits may occur. However, both field‐dependent/independent students would prefer a greater usage of visuals in this CAI program. Both groups of students expressed advantages to the use of the CAI program but preferred traditional instructional methods of laboratory and lecture to CAI as their primary source of information.