Examining the Effects of Stress and Campus Climate on the Persistence of Students of Color and White Students: An Application of Bean and Eaton’s Psychological Model of Retention

The current study examined the effects of stress and campus climate perceptions on the persistence decisions of students of color and White students using Bean and Eaton’s (2000) Psychological Model of College Student Retention. A sample of first-year students (N = 1,491) at a predominantly White research university were survey enduring their second semester and their enrollment status was subsequently tracked after 2 years. Path analysis was conducted on the sample of students of color (n = 548) and White students (n = 943). Results indicated models that explained 27 % of the variance for students of color and 44 % of the variance for White students in persistence after 2 years of college. Among the initial 37 variables included in the models, 17 had significant direct and indirect effects on students’ of color persistence including observing racism on campus, having comfortable academic interactions, stress related to the academic environment, and feelings about the campus environment. For White students, 13 variables had significant direct and indirect effects on persistence, including having opportunities for diverse peer interactions and comfortable academic interactions, stress related to the social environment on campus, and feelings about the campus environment. The discussion highlights the usefulness of the Bean and Eaton model for examining retention for students of color and White students.     

Developing cultural competency in higher education: an agenda for practice

As a result of changing national values and unrest, demographic and population shifts, and ever-changing admissions practices and policies, implementing a diversity and cultural-competency agenda within university settings has become a priority across the UK, Europe, and US. Furthermore, public institutions across the UK, EU, and US are now more racially and ethnically diverse than ever [Snyder, T. D., C. Debray, and S. A. Dillow. 2016. ‘Digest of Education Statistics 2016.’ NCES 2016-006. National Centre for Education Statistics; Sursock, Andree. 2015. Trends 2015: Learning and Teaching in European Universities. European University Association. Accessed October 28 2017. www.eua.be/Libraries/publicationshomepage-list/EUA_Trends_2015_web.]. Yet, cultural competency efforts on campuses remain largely under theorized [Bezrukova, K., K. A. Jehn, and C. S. Spell. 2012. “Reviewing Diversity Training: Where We Have Been and Where We Should Go.” Academy of Management Learning and Education 11 (2): 207–227] and diffuse [Sue, S., D. C. Fujino, L. T. Hu, D. T. Takeuchi, and N. W. Zane. 1991. ‘Community Mental Health Services for Ethnic Minority Groups: A Test of the Cultural Responsiveness Hypothesis.’ Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 59 (4): 533–540]. This article seeks to outline an agenda for this work, highlighting outcomes of cultural competency learning and underscoring the role of campus leadership in the development of supportive characteristics. These characteristics include attention to shared knowledge, professional learning at all levels of the organization, inclusive instructional methods, integration with other campus initiatives, and inclusivity of diversity foci. Posited are six supportive conditions for successful implementation.     

Mission and Diversity Statements: What They Do and Do Not Say

For this study we used institutional web sites to examine the mission statements of 80 higher education institutions for messages about diversity. Of the 80 institutions, 59 (75%) referenced diversity in their mission statements; but only 19% defined diversity in racial or ethnic terms. In addition to mission statements, 52 (or 65%) of the 80 institutions had a separate diversity statement; but only 18 of these were an official institutional statement. These treatments of diversity are interesting in light of the changing demographics of the incoming college student population and the recognized need for greater cultural development or awareness on campuses. If mission and diversity statements reflect the priorities of the institution, 35% of the institutions in the sample said nothing about diversity.     

How Canadian universities use social media to brand themselves

This paper explores social media marketing strategies applied by Canadian universities as a tool for institutional branding, recruitment and engagement of home and international students. The target sample involves the total population of Canadian university-status institutions (N = 106). Qualitative data were collected from two major social networking websites, Facebook and Twitter, over the span of six months to provide a comprehensive picture. Additionally, student enrolment data were compiled with the purpose of associating social media implementation with fluctuations of student enrolment. Results reveal that the Twitter platform is generally much more popular to carry conversations, but that Facebook remains the preferred website for university-initiated postings; most of these university-led postings, whether on Twitter or Facebook, relate to campus/student news and events. Findings point to institutions as only one of many message generators, while students and a host of third parties have become the dominant ones.     

Good teaching as a messy narrative of change within a policy ensemble of networks,superstructures and flows

This paper examines ‘good teaching’ within a policy ensemble where teachers’ subjectification and practices are underpinned by new modes of evaluation and enforcement. Although the paper is written with specific concern for teachers in the Republic of Ireland, the literature demonstrates that concerns raised resonate internationally. Theoretical frameworks are drawn from Bernstein’s pedagogic device and ‘rules of evaluation’ (2000, p. 34) and the tyranny of number, networks and superstructures found in policy research. The study includes a limited analysis of the policy ensemble in ‘Austerity Ireland’ and contextual understandings and perspectives of a purposive sample of experienced teachers (n = 54). Critical analysis generated three themes: multiple perspectives about ‘good teaching’, a strongly perceived pedagogy of oppression and low ethical trust in reported interactions at some schools and with the state inspectorate. Conclusions position ‘good teaching’ within the super-complexity of a messy narrative of change and flows enacted with a diversity of inquirers and institutions. The study questions the role of state inspectors as arbiters of ‘good teaching’ and challenges the academy of teacher education in assuring productive discursive gaps for education as a social responsibility for public-interest values.     

Conversations about sexuality on a public university campus: perspectives from campus ministry students and leaders

Little is known about university campus religious organisations’ influence on students’ sexuality-related attitudes and behaviours. This study sought to better understand sexuality-related communication within the context of campus ministries by exploring students’ and campus ministry leaders’ conversational experiences at a public university in the south-east USA. Data sources included an online survey of undergraduates participating in student religious organisations (n = 57), focus groups with campus ministry students (n = 36), and individual interviews with campus ministry leaders (n = 19). Findings indicated student satisfaction with the focus and frequency of conversations about romantic relationships and sexual health within the context of campus ministries. However, both campus ministry students and leaders indicated discomfort in discussions of sexuality. Leaders acknowledged their need for better strategies to engage students; students focused on how to integrate religious messages about sexuality with messages from other sources. These findings suggest campus ministry leaders may benefit from focused training and support to communicate more effectively with college students about sexuality.     

Meaningful reading gains by adult literacy learners

To obtain a fuller picture of the efficacy of reading instruction programs for adult literacy learners, gains by individual students were examined in a sample (n = 148) in which weak to moderate gains at the group level had been obtained in response to tutoring interventions that focused on strengthening basic decoding and fluency skills of low literate adults (Sabatini, Shore, Holtzman, & Scarborough, 2011). Learners were randomly assigned to receive one of three tutoring programs for an average of 44 h of instruction. We used within-individual gains replicated over tests (WIGROT) as the method for identifying gainers, who were defined as students whose reading levels increased from pretest to posttest by a half year or more on at least two of four measured aspects of reading proficiency. The 46 % of the sample who met the criterion had higher pretest scores than non-gainers on measures of reading (d = .42, p < .01) and phonological awareness (d = .47, p < .01), and included fewer adults with a history of special education (43 vs. 61 %, phi = .19, p < .05), regardless of which instructional condition had been received. The findings suggest that basic skills instruction can lead to a meaningful degree of benefit for many adult learners who persist in reading programs for several months. Supplementing group level results with analyses of individual growth, such as WIGROT, appears to be useful in evaluating the efficacy of literacy interventions.     

Adolescents and Cyber Bullying: The Precaution Adoption Process Model

A survey of adolescents (N?=?1,488) documented Facebook use and experience with cyber bullying. The study found that 84 % of adolescents (middle school through college undergraduates) use Facebook, and that most users log on daily. While 30 % of the sample reported being cyber bullied, only 12.5 % quit using the site, and only 18 % told a parent or school official about the abuse. Up to 75 % of middle school Facebook users have experienced cyber bullying. The current study was the first to apply the Precaution Adoption Process Model (PAPM) to cyber bullying or to test the model with children and adolescents. Results suggest that most adolescents are aware of cyber bullying and acknowledge it as a problem in their school. About half of the adolescents did not progress beyond Stage 2 of the PAPM (aware of the problem, but haven’t really thought about it). Adolescents also exhibited optimistic bias, believing they were less likely than peers to become cyber bullied. Implications for prevention education are discussed.     

Effects of mediated intervention on cognitive functions: A pilot study with Grade 5 learners at a remedial school

The present study explored the effects of a mediated intervention programme on a sample of Grade 5 learners, in a remedial school. The participants (n = 20) were systematically sampled and they constituted two groups; namely, Individual Mediation (n = 10) and Group Mediation (n = 10). It was hypothesised that participants exposed to this programme would yield a significant improvement in cognitive functioning as measured by the Raven's Coloured Progressive Matrices. It was further proposed that participants within the Individual Mediation group would perform significantly better than those within Group Mediation. Set Variations B-8 to B-12 from Feuerstein's Learning Potential Assessment Device served as a vehicle for mediating cognitive deficiencies. Results revealed a significant improvement in scores only within the Individual Mediation group. Despite the statistically significant improvement yielded within the Individual Mediation group, no statistically significant difference was found between the Individual Mediation and the Group Mediation sample. These findings are discussed in light of existing literature and future recommendations are suggested.     

Leadership in Distance Education: Qualities and Qualifications Sought by Higher Education Institutions

Abstract

This article presents the results of an investigation into the qualities and qualifications sought in distance education leaders by institutions of higher education in the United States. The researchers examined 191 distance education leadership position announcements posted by online sources between 1997 and 2010. Content analysis of these announcements suggests that distance education leadership in higher education requires preparation at the graduate level and a variety of academic and administrative experiences and skills including leadership, program evaluation, technical expertise, teaching, and course development. Leadership responsibilities are equally broad within a range of strategic, operational, and instructional areas.     

Factors that influence pre-service teachers' persistence

This study investigated the role of various factors in pre-service teachers' persistence. Using a sample of U.S. pre-service teachers (N = 1365) from 256 institutions, the study explored the joint effect of predictors that influence their persistence including student engagement, demographic characteristics, prior achievement, college grades, and institutional characteristics. Results from multilevel logistic models indicated that campus environment engagement was a weak but positive predictor of persistence, those with higher grades were more likely to persist, and male and minority pre-service teachers were less likely to persist. Implications include implementing evidence-based programs to improve campus environment and support at-risk candidates.     

Supporting Veteran Transitions to the Academic Setting: VA on Campus

In this case study, we assessed academic functioning, service satisfaction, and needs of student veterans at a community college who had accessed the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) Student Veteran Health Program (SVHP) (n = 36). The SVHP provides outreach and behavioral health services directly on a large community college campus to overcome common barriers to engagement in mental health care (e.g., distance from a VA medical center). Academic difficulties that were most commonly reported were in the areas of retention of information, meeting deadlines, and cooperation with other students. Overall, the majority of student veterans who received services in the SVHP were satisfied (76.5%). Services targeting attention and concentration and utilization of educational benefits were highlighted as important by student veterans. This case study of VA services delivered within the community college setting provides important insights into how to design VA services to target the needs of student veterans. Specific recommendations for supporting student veterans on a community college campus are discussed.     

Collaborative online projects for English language learners in science

This paper summarizes how collaborative online projects (COPs) are used to facilitate science content-area learning for English Learners of Hispanic origin. This is a Mexico-USA partnership project funded by the National Science Foundation. A COP is a 10-week thematic science unit, completely online, and bilingual (Spanish and English) designed to provide collaborative learning experiences with culturally and linguistically relevant science instruction in an interactive and multimodal learning environment. Units are integrated with explicit instructional lessons that include: (a) hands-on and laboratory activities, (b) interactive materials and interactive games with immediate feedback, (c) animated video tutorials, (d) discussion forums where students exchange scientific learning across classrooms in the USA and in Mexico, and (e) summative and formative assessments. Thematic units have been aligned to U.S. National Science Education Standards and are under current revisions for alignment to the Common Core State Standards. Training materials for the teachers have been integrated into the project website to facilitate self-paced and independent learning. Preliminary findings of our pre-experimental study with a sample of 53 students (81 % ELs), distributed across three different groups, resulted in a 21 % statistically significant points increase from pretest to posttest assessments of science content learning, t(52) = 11.07, p = .000.     

Mental disorder stigma among Scottish university students

Many studies have investigated university students’ attitudes to people with mental disorder (PMD) but most have used medical student participants. No Scottish studies were found on this topic where students of a broad range of subjects had participated. A mixed methods research design was employed where the topic was qualitatively explored (n = 3) prior to quantification of perspectives via questionnaire use (n = 642). Only 10.3% of questionnaire respondents agreed that PMD tended to be more violent than others and only 3.7% believed keeping PMD in psychiatric hospitals made the campus safer. Over 94% disagreed that PMD caused their problems, but 20.3% disagreed that PMD often improved with treatment. Almost 4% reported unwillingness to work on a class project with PMD. Science students were significantly more likely than arts students to view PMD as: violent, unpredictable, blameworthy for their condition, people who should be kept away from campus, causing them to feel unsafe. International students were more likely to ‘strongly agree’ than European Union (EU) students that PMD should be kept off the campus. EU students were more willing to work on a class project with PMD than international students were. Postgraduate students exhibited several more negative attitudes than undergraduates; being more likely to see PMD as violent and less likely to work on a class project with PMD. The need for mental disorder stigma related education among students at Scottish universities should be assessed.     

Institutional Uses of Twitter in U.S. Higher Education

This study employed data mining and quantitative methods to collect and analyze the available histories of primary Twitter accounts of institutions of higher education in the U.S. (n?=?2411). The study comprises a sample of 5.7 million tweets, representing 62 % of all tweets created by these accounts and the entire population of U.S. colleges and universities. With this large, generalizable dataset, researchers were able to determine that the preponderance of institutional tweets are 1) monologic, 2) disseminate information (vs. eliciting action), 3) link to a relatively limited and insular ecosystem of web resources, and 4) express neutral or positive sentiment. While prior research suggests that social media can serve as a vehicle for institutions to extend their reach and further demonstrate their value to society, this article provides empirical and generalizable evidence to suggest that such innovation, in the context of institutional social media use, is limited.     

Community colleges maintain modest response rates to prospective student inquiry

None of the community colleges in this study responded with a text message, as requested in the prospective student’s inquiry. Only 1.38% (n = 3) of the institutions responded to the inquiry with a telephone call. This research realized a slightly higher rate of e-mail response within five working days; 54.98% (n = 116) as opposed to the 2009 results of 50.5% (n = 110) in Shadinger’s (2014) study. More community colleges (n = 12, 5.5%) also had e-mail addresses or information request forms (n = 182, 83.5%) than in the original study (n = 170, 78.0%). Nearly 100% of community college websites had social media links, even when an e-mail address or information request form was not available. In an expansion of previous statements about communication, Noel-Levitz (2014a) reported prospective students were “more likely to consider schools that use e-mail, text messages or social media to communicate” (p. 4). Concurrently, the underutilization of e-mail, social media, and cell phones will simply exacerbate communication and recruiting issues for community colleges.     

Engaging election contention: Understanding why presidents engage with contentious issues

In recent years, technology has made it possible, and in some ways critical, for college and university presidents to increase campus‐wide communication. Following the 2016 US presidential election, many college presidents across the country sent campus‐wide communications in response to the election, while others chose not to respond. The resulting reactions from campus and community stakeholders to these communications, or the lack of communication, from presidents was mixed due to the contentious nature of the election. In an effort to better understand a president’s decision to communicate, this study utilised coded interviews with 12 US flagship institution presidents or vice‐presidents for communication, providing insight into why presidents generally respond to contentious events and, more specifically, why presidents chose to respond to the 2016 election of Donald Trump. Four motivations that generally influenced presidential communications were identified (i.e., responsibility to campus stakeholders, pressure to respond, emphasise university values and the role of a public university), and subsequent sub‐themes were identified while analysing why presidents responded to the 2016 election specifically. This study concludes by offering implications for presidential communication and directions for future research on presidential engagement with contentious events.     

Conceptualizing Openness to Diversity and Challenge: Its Relation to College Experiences,Achievement, and Retention

Openness to diversity and challenge (ODC) constitutes an integral outcome of the undergraduate experience. However, ODC may also serve as a form of generalized openness to experience; if so, then it should be positively related to a host of college experiences as well as student success. The study reported here explored this possibility within a longitudinal sample of 8,475 first-year students at 46 institutions. Results of hierarchical linear modeling analyses showed that ODC is positively and significantly related to several broad measures of college experiences and first-year GPA, and it is also a marginally significant predictor of first-to-second year retention.     

The Simple View of Reading in Bilingual Language-Minority Children Acquiring a Highly Transparent Second Language

The present study evaluated which components within the simple view of reading model better predicted reading comprehension in a sample of bilingual language-minority children exposed to Italian, a highly transparent language, as a second language. The sample included 260 typically developing bilingual children who were attending either the first 2 years (n = 95) or the last 3 years (n = 165) of primary school and who had Italian as an instructional language. Children were administered a comprehensive battery for the assessment of decoding skills, listening comprehension, and reading comprehension latent variables. Results showed that, in both groups, listening comprehension was the most powerful predictor of reading comprehension, followed, only for younger children, by reading accuracy. Reading speed was not a significant predictor. These results confirmed the primary role of listening comprehension in predicting reading comprehension in bilinguals and added important evidence regarding the role of reading accuracy as a predictor of reading comprehension.     

Relationships between school climate,bullying and delinquent behaviours

Given that schools are, potentially, powerful sites for influencing adolescent behaviour, it is important that there is greater understanding of the psychosocial aspects of the school climate that can be leveraged for this purpose. The research reported in this article used structural equation modelling (with data from a sample of 6120 students at Australian high schools) to examine the influence of the psychosocial school-level environment on students’ self-reported experiences of bully victimisation (i.e. being victims of bullying) and engagement in delinquent behaviours. Further, we examined whether bully victimisation mediated the relationships between school climate variables and delinquent behaviours. School connectedness and rule clarity were negatively associated with both bully victimisation and delinquency (p < 0.05), and teacher support was negatively associated with bully victimisation (p < 0.01), confirming the importance of these aspects of the school-level environment. However, affirming diversity and reporting and seeking help both had positive influences on bully victimisation (p < 0.05), raising concerns about the ways in which these aspects of the school-level environment might have been promoted. Importantly, bully victimisation was found to mediate the influence of five of the six school climate constructs on delinquent behaviours (p < 0.001). This study advance our understanding of how specific aspects of the school climate influence the prevalence of bullying and delinquent behaviour, adding weight to the call for educators to actively monitor and enhance psychosocial aspects of the school climate in order to improve student behavioural outcomes.