College Students’ Experiences with Diversity and Their Effects on Academic Self-Confidence,Social Agency,and Disposition toward Critical Thinking

The results of this study conducted at the University of Michigan (n = 289) indicate that students with more experiences with diversity, particularly enrollment in diversity courses and positive interactions with diverse peers, are more likely to score higher on academic self-confidence, social agency, and critical thinking disposition. In addition, the study provides evidence that diversity experiences may work together to foster development of certain aspects of self.The work reported herein is supported under the National Institute for Student Achievement, Curriculum and Assessment program, agreement number R305T990402-00, CFDA/Subprogram No: 84.305T, as administered by the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI), U.S. Department of Education. The findings and opinions expressed in this report do not reflect the position or policies of OERI or the U.S. Department of Education.     

The Influence of Perceived Disgust on Students’ Motivation and Achievement

There are a wide range of student emotions in academic settings, but apart from emotions such as interest and well-being, disgust is a negative emotion which might be relevant in biology education, for instance, during dissection or when encountering living animals. This paper addresses the issue of situational disgust during a course at the university using living animals and prepared mounts. The course covers a wide range of organisms from protists (e.g. Paramecium) through invertebrates to vertebrates and uses many methods (e.g. microscopy, dissection, and behavioral observations) and specific content (anatomy, structure, and behavior). The dissection of the trout was rated as most disgusting, followed by working with living woodlice, living earthworms, and living snails. The least disgusting lessons were those dealing with microscopy, mammalian skulls, honeybee dance, and bird flight. Based on animals, macro-invertebrates were rated as most disgusting and mammals as least disgusting. Concerning methods, observing through a microscope was perceived as being least disgusting, followed by experiments without animals, then followed by experiments with living animals and, most disgusting, dissection. Disgust was correlated negatively with interest, well-being, and competence but positively with pressure and boredom. Thus, low disgust is related to high interest, well-being, and competence, while higher disgust is related to higher pressure and boredom. The results show a need for measuring situational disgust in addition to survey studies. They also suggest that perceived disgust negatively affects intrinsic motivation. This has implications for biology teaching, because carrying out dissections or experiencing living animals in the classroom may have a detrimental effect on motivation.     

First-Year College Students’ Conflict with Religion and Science

This study took place during a First Year Seminar course where 20 incoming college freshmen studied the central topic of the nature of science within the context of biological evolution. The instructor researched students’ understandings in the nature of science as they progressed through the course by examining a variety of qualitative and quantitative data including class writings, pre- and post-test selected items from the VOSTS (Views on Science-Technology-Society), and interviews. The intended outcomes of the course were to reduce the number of student misconceptions in the nature of science and to ease student apprehension when learning about evolution. Data were analyzed to determine whether students were moving toward a more generally accepted idea of the nature of science or toward another type of misconception.     

Living–Learning Programs and First-Generation College Students’ Academic and Social Transition to College

This study examines the role of living–learning (L/L) programs in facilitating first-generation students’ perceived academic and social transition to college. Using a sample of 1,335 first-generation students from 33 4-year institutions who participated in the National Study of Living–Learning Programs during Spring 2004, the results of the study show that first-generation students in L/L programs reported a more successful academic and social transition to college than their first-generation counterparts living in a traditional residence hall setting. In addition, interactions with faculty members and using residence hall resources facilitated an easier academic transition for first-generation students in L/L programs, and supportive residence hall climates were related to an easier social transition. A preliminary interpretation of this study’s results is that structured activities, such as faculty interaction and residence hall programming, are more influential for this population than informal peer groups. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2005 Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Montreal, Canada.     

The Methodology of Self-correction on College Students’ English Composition and Results

Based on the related theories of Corpus Linguistics and Error Analysis, this paper is aimed to evaluate the effect of selfcorrection through the educational experiment, with non-English major students using web corpus to identify and self-correct their errors as the subjects. To help art students improve their English writing skills, the search engine of and sentence database of online dictionary of the internet corpus are effective and helpful.     

Exercise and Children’s Intelligence, Cognition, and Academic Achievement

Studies that examine the effects of exercise on children’s intelligence, cognition, or academic achievement were reviewed and results were discussed in light of (a) contemporary cognitive theory development directed toward exercise, (b) recent research demonstrating the salutary effects of exercise on adults’ cognitive functioning, and (c) studies conducted with animals that have linked physical activity to changes in neurological development and behavior. Similar to adults, exercise facilitates children’s executive function (i.e., processes required to select, organize, and properly initiate goal-directed actions). Exercise may prove to be a simple, yet important, method of enhancing those aspects of children’s mental functioning central to cognitive development.

Parenting Style as a Moderator for Students’ Academic Achievement

Parenting styles have always been a crucial factor in influencing all aspects of a person??s development. The purpose of this study is to test the structural equation model of academic achievement among the students using parenting styles as a moderator. The sample comprised 493 students from eight schools. Parenting styles are determined using the Parental Authority Questionnaire (Buri in J Pers Assess 57:110?C119, 1991). Academic achievement is measured based on the students?? performance in the Lower Secondary Assessment. Data were analyzed using structural equation modelling. Results demonstrated that model of authoritative and model of authoritarian fit the data of this study well. Both authoritative and authoritarian parenting styles are the most common practice of the parents. Parenting styles have been found to be a moderator of this study. The results indicated that parenting styles moderated the effect of academic self-concept on academic achievement. The impact of academic self-concept on academic achievement is found to be greater for the authoritative than the authoritarian parenting style.     

A Social Support Intervention and Academic Achievement in College: Does Perceived Loneliness Mediate the Relationship?

The authors examined whether a social support intervention reduced loneliness and increased academic achievement among college freshmen. Eighty‐eight 1st‐year students randomly assigned to a social support group program reported less loneliness in the spring of their freshman year and obtained higher grade point averages in the fall of their sophomore year, compared with control participants, after controlling for demographic variables. Loneliness barely mediated the relationship between the social support intervention and academic achievement, suggesting other mechanisms by which the intervention enhanced academic performance.     

Interparental Differences of Opinion and Children’s Academic Achievement

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of elementary school interns trained in a summer program by the Stanford microteaching approach as compared with interns who received conventional classroom observation and student teaching experience. Contrary to expectation based on previous research findings, microteaching was not found to result in significantly higher ratings of teacher effectiveness either immediately after or a year after training. However, it was concluded that microteaching is an effective training strategy since it achieves similar results when compared with conventional training methods but in only one-fifth the time and with fewer administrative problems. An incidental finding was that pretraining ratings of teaching performance based on a brief videotaped lesson were generally good predictors of later ratings of teaching effectiveness.     

Teachers’ Discussions Of Students’ Thinking: Meeting The Challenge Of Attending To Students’ Thinking

The purpose of this article is to describe findings from a study of teachers’ social interaction during discussions about students’ thinking. The goal of the discussions was for the teachers to interpret their students’ thinking as revealed from work on non-routine, thought-revealing mathematical tasks, known as model-eliciting activities. The research reported in this article focuses on instances during the discussions when the teachers engaged in what the researcher termed ‘mini-inquiries’, occasions during which the teachers inquired into why their students thought about the associated model-eliciting activities as they did or when the teachers inquired into the underlying mathematical complexities associated with the model-eliciting activities. During these mini-inquiries, the teachers typically engaged in one of four types of interaction patterns that enabled them to meet some of the challenges of attending to students’ thinking that are described in United States reform documents.     

National Evidence of the Impact of First-Year Online Enrollment on Postsecondary Students’ Long-Term Academic Outcomes

This study examines the influence of first-year online enrollment on the long-term academic outcomes of postsecondary students. Using a nationally representative sample and propensity score weighting, I find that enrolling in some online courses is associated with lower odds of dropping out of college. Additional results reveal a positive relationship between enrolling in some online courses and sub-baccalaureate indicators of long-term academic success, such as earning an associate’s degree and transferring from a community college to a 4-year institution.     

First-Year Students’ Time Use in College: A Latent Profile Analysis

Students’ time expenditures influence their learning and development. This study used latent profile analysis to identify a taxonomy of how first-year students spend their time using a large multi-institution sample. We identified four time usage patterns by first-year students titled Balanced, Involved, Partiers, and Parents. Sex, expected major field, on-campus residency, age, Greek-life membership, and standardized test scores were predictive of students’ time use patterns. Holding a range of student and institutional factors constant, members of the involved group, on average, reported higher levels of engagement than the Balanced group, while Partiers reported lower levels of engagement. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.     

The Effect of Achievement Goals: Does Level of Perceived Academic Competence Make a Difference?

Researchers using a goal orientation framework have hypothesized that learning goals are associated with adaptive patterns of behavior, regardless of the level of perceived ability. In contrast, perceived ability is hypothesized to moderate the relation between performance goals and patterns of adaptive or maladaptive behavior. We examined this hypothesis in two samples of seventh grade middle school students, focusing on the math domain in one sample and on the English domain in the other. Using two different statistical methods, median split and multiple regression, we found only little support for the role of perceived competence as a moderator between performance goals and patterns of behavior. Contrary to what has been suggested, we found some evidence that perceived competence moderated the relation between learning goals and behavior. Implications of these findings for recent efforts to use goal theory to reform classrooms and schools are discussed.     

Family Background,Students’ Academic Self-Efficacy,and Students’ Career and Life Success Expectations

This study examined the relationship of family background on students’ academic self-efficacy and the impact of students’ self-efficacy on their career and life success expectations. The study used the national dataset of the Educational Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS: 2002), funded by the U.S. Department of Education. Based on a path model, results demonstrated that family background predicted academic self-efficacy positively and students’ career and life success expectations negatively. However, with the mediating influence of academic self-efficacy, family background positively influenced students’ career and life success expectations. School counselors should consider interventions to enhance interactions between parents and students and seek to develop positive perceptions about students’ capabilities and futures. In addition, school counselors need to be knowledgeable about curricula, enrichment classes, summer opportunities, various educational options, and students’ academic and career aspirations for providing better guidance.     

The Research of College Students’ English Classroom Behavior Investigations

By employing quantitative research methods, the paper investigates college students' preferences to English classroom behaviors and the relations between behaviors and achievements. The results indicate that there are significant differences among the subjects' behavior, cognitive and emotional elements, and their classroom behaviors are mainly visual, individual, imitative and exterior-motivated; there are significant differences in behavior element and emotional element between high-result group and low-result group; confident and oral classroom behaviors have prominent relations with CET-4 achievements, and different teaching methods may make learning behaviors produce good or bad effects to achievements.     

The Practice and Thinking of the Students’Exchange Program Under the Background of Internationalization

Based on the background of internationalization of higher education, the article analyzed the forms, size, significance and problems of the international students’exchange launched in Dali University of Yunnan Province; and then provided the sustainable developing strategies for the program.     

Physical Education Pre-service Teachers’ Understanding,Application, and Development of Critical Thinking

To better prepare physical education (PE) teachers, this study explored a group of pre-service teachers’ understanding, application, and development of critical thinking (CT) in a capstone methods course. Participants were 12 pre-service teachers from a PE teacher education (PETE) program at a large university in the southwestern United States. Data were collected through focus group interviews and post-lab assignments and were analyzed via content analysis. Findings showed that the PE pre-service teachers could define CT and recognize its importance to teaching and learning. Together with field-based teaching practices, course written assignments such as the encyclopedia article, curriculum project, lesson plans, and post assignments were identified as contributors to CT development. At the end of the semester, the PE pre-service teachers demonstrated an improvement in CT across three levels. Based on our findings, we recommend the integration of CT instruction into PETE programs.     

On the Impact of Learning Cycle Teaching on Austrian High School Students’ Emotions,Academic Self-Concept,Engagement, and Achievement

Research in Science Education - Over the past several decades, empirical support for inquiry-based forms of science teaching has accumulated. Critical voices, however, also exist, claiming that...