Market-Based Higher Education: Does Colorado’s Voucher Model Improve Higher Education Access and Efficiency?

In 2004, Colorado introduced the nation’s first voucher model for financing public higher education. With state appropriations now allocated to students, rather than institutions, state officials expect this model to create cost efficiencies while also expanding college access. Using difference-in-difference regression analysis, we find limited evidence that these outcomes occurred within the 4-year sector; however, the policy increased cost efficiencies among community college and reduced college access for some underrepresented groups. The paper discusses the challenges of applying market-based reforms to public higher education.     

Does Investing in School Capital Infrastructure Improve Student Achievement?

Within the research community, there is a vigorous debate over whether additional educational expenditures will lead to improved performance of schools. Some of the debate is an outgrowth of the lack of causal knowledge of the impacts of expenditures on student outcomes. To help fill this void, we examine the causal impact of capital expenditures on school district proficiency rates in Michigan. For the analysis, we employ a regression discontinuity design where we use the outcomes of bond elections as the forcing variable. Our results provide some evidence that capital expenditures can have positive effects on student proficiency levels.     

Meditation in Higher Education: Does it Enhance Cognition?

We predicted that students in a sociology course that included contemplative practices (i.e., mindfulness meditation) would show an increase in performance on higher level cognitive abilities (executive functions) over the semester compared to a control group of students. Change in executive functions performance was not significantly different between the two groups. However, when looking within the meditation group, the time spent meditating predicted the amount of executive function improvement, suggesting that the amount of time spent meditating is strongly related to the level of improvement. This finding provides preliminary support for benefits of meditation for students’ higher level cognitive abilities.     

Executive Compensation in Public Higher Education: Does Performance Matter?

Executive evaluation and compensation are central to organizational accountability and governance. Driven by increasing public demand on justifications and accountability for substantial salary increases for public university presidents, this paper is intended to shed light on the linkage between performance and executive compensation in public universities by examining the determinants of university presidents’ pay from 2004/2005 to 2008/2009 academic years. The central question is whether presidential compensation is related to a wide array of newly developed university performance measures or is independent of performance, i.e., university presidents are paid like bureaucrats in line with the widely supported conclusion in Jensen and Murphy (1990b) suggesting corporate CEOs are really paid like bureaucrats. Methodologically, Arellano–Bond dynamic panel model is applied to control for serial autocorrelation in the compensation data, i.e., university presidents’ pay in the current period is dependent to a great extent on that in the prior period. With extensive individual, institutional, and performance characteristics examined, it is concluded that performance related variables play a very limited role in determining public university presidents’ executive remuneration, when temporal autocorrelation is properly controlled, and presidential pay is strongly and persistently associated over time. The statistically insignificant pay-performance relationship together with the temporally persistent increases of presidential compensation may provide initial evidence supporting that public university presidents are paid like bureaucrats.     

Scientific Skills as Core Competences in Medical Education: What do medical students think?

Background: Scientific excellence is one of the most fundamental underpinnings of medical education and its relevance is unquestionable. To be involved in research activities enhances students' critical thinking and problem-solving capacities, which are mandatory competences for new achievements in patient care and consequently to the improvement of clinical practice. Purposes: This work aimed to study the relevance given by Portuguese medical students to a core of scientific skills, and their judgment about their own ability to execute those skills. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted on students attending the first, fourth and sixth years of medical course in the same period. An assessment istrument, exploring the importance given by Portuguese medical students to scientific skills in high school, to clinical practice and to their own ability to execute them, was designed, adapted and applied specifically to this study. Results: Students' perceptions were associated with gender, academic year, previous participation in research activities, positive and negative attitudes toward science, research integration into the curriculum and motivation to undertake research. The viewpoint of medical students about the relevance of scientific skills overall, and the ability to execute them, was independently associated with motivation to be enrolled in research. Conclusions: These findings have meaningful implications in medical education regarding the inclusion of a structural research program in the medical curriculum. Students should be aware that clinical practice would greatly benefit from the enrollment in research activities. By developing a solid scientific literacy future physicians will be able to apply new knowledge in patient care.     

Does Problem Solving = Prior Knowledge + Reasoning Skills in Earth Science? An Exploratory Study

This study examined the interrelationship between tenth-grade students’ problem solving ability (PSA) and their domain-specific knowledge (DSK) as well as reasoning skills (RS) in a secondary school of Taiwan. The PSA test was designed to emphasize students’ divergent-thinking ability (DTA) and convergent-thinking ability (CTA) subscales in the area of Earth science. Two hundred and sixty tenth graders who were enrolled in six Earth science classes at a public senior high school located in the eastern region of Taiwan were participants. Major findings are as follows: (a) A significantly positive correlation existed between students’ PSA and their DSK and RS, approaching large effect sizes; (b) Both students’ DSK and RS significantly explained the variance of their PSA with large effect sizes; (c) Students’ RS could more significantly explain the variance of their DTA subscale with medium effect size while DSK might more significantly explain the variance of their CTA, approaching large effect size. The research suggests that more emphasis should be placed on the reasoning skills when developing students’ divergent-thinking abilities, while stressing more domain-specific knowledge when students’ convergent-thinking ability is considered.     

Are Students Customers in Finnish Higher Education?

This study examines Finnish higher education students’ perceptions of whether students are customers, based on qualitative interview data. The article contributes to the discussion on students as customers by giving attention to students’ own voices from a country where tuition fees are not generally collected. The data are presented and analysed using a matrix of preference and perception of seeing students as customers. While the data contained student voices insisting that it is not appropriate to talk about customers because money is not involved, different orientations showing either a preference or perception of students as customers were also described. It is concluded that seeing a student as a customer might be a solution to various higher education challenges which are not all related to tuition fees.     

Development of Scientific Reasoning in College Biology: Do Two Levels of General Hypothesis‐Testing Skills Exist?

The primary purpose of the present study was to test the hypothesis that two general developmentally based levels of hypothesis‐testing skills exist. The first hypothesized level presumably involves skills associated with testing hypotheses about observable causal agents; the second presumably involves skills associated with testing hypotheses involving unobservable entities. To test this hypothesis, a hypothesis‐testing skills test was developed and administered to a large sample of college students both at the start and at the end of a biology course in which several hypotheses at each level were generated and tested. The predicted positive relationship between level of hypothesis‐testing skill and performance on a transfer problem involving the test of a hypothesis involving unobservable entities was found. The predicted positive relationship between level of hypothesis‐testing skill and course performance was also found. Both theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 37: 81–101, 2000     

Stereoscopy in Static Scientific Imagery in an Informal Education Setting: Does It Matter?

Stereoscopic technology (3D) is rapidly becoming ubiquitous across research, entertainment and informal educational settings. Children of today may grow up never knowing a time when movies, television and video games were not available stereoscopically. Despite this rapid expansion, the field’s understanding of the impact of stereoscopic visualizations on learning is rather limited. Much of the excitement of stereoscopic technology could be due to a novelty effect, which will wear off over time. This study controlled for the novelty factor using a variety of techniques. On the floor of an urban science center, 261 children were shown 12 photographs and visualizations of highly spatial scientific objects and scenes. The images were randomly shown in either traditional (2D) format or in stereoscopic format. The children were asked two questions of each image—one about a spatial property of the image and one about a real-world application of that property. At the end of the test, the child was asked to draw from memory the last image they saw. Results showed no overall significant difference in response to the questions associated with 2D or 3D images. However, children who saw the final slide only in 3D drew more complex representations of the slide than those who did not. Results are discussed through the lenses of cognitive load theory and the effect of novelty on engagement.     

Mergers in Higher Education -- Success or Failure?

Tertiary Education and Management - The demands for greater efficiency, higher quality and reductions in public budgets have meant that continually more countries are looking closely at the...     

Further Education of Higher Education Graduates — the More,the Better?

In times of rapid technological and organisational change, it is argued that lifelong further education becomes more and more important for labour market success. Especially in labour market segments for the highly qualified, it is essential to constantly update one's qualifications. This is reflected in the finding that graduates with tertiary education are closely involved in further training measures at the beginning of their life courses. Almost all take part in at least one further training measure in the first five years after graduation. The further education strategies of higher education graduates, however, vary greatly in terms of frequency of participation, duration of measures, financing of the measure and the type of skills acquired. Using a German graduate panel which traces a sample of graduates up to five years after they obtained their degree in 1997 (HIS Absolventenpanel), we analyse which of these strategies are most successful in terms of wages. Using random effect panel models, we find — controlling for a variety of other factors — that the frequency of participation in further education only has a significant positive influence on male graduates' wages. Moreover, it is mainly measures paid exclusively by the employer and courses directed at personality development, i.e. management skills, which have substantial wage premiums.     

Will Teachers Receive Higher Student Evaluations by Giving Higher Grades and Less Course Work?

This study investigated whether mean expected grades and the level of difficult/workload in courses, as reported by students, unduly influence student ratings instruction. Over 50,000 college courses whose teachers used the Student Instructional Report II were analyzed. In addition to the two primary independent variables, the regression analyses included 8 subject area groupings and controlled for such factors as class size, teaching method, and student perceived learning outcomes in the course. Learning outcomes had a large positive effect on student evaluations of instructions, as it should. After controlling for learning outcomes, expected grades generally did not affect student evaluations. In fact, contrary to what some faculty think, courses in natural sciences with expected grades of A were rated lower, not higher. Courses were rated lower when they were rated as either difficult or too elementary. Courses rated at the just right level received the highest evaluations.     

The Effectiveness of Interacting with Scientific Animations in Chemistry Using Mobile Devices on Grade 12 Students’ Spatial Ability and Scientific Reasoning Skills

The purpose of the current study was to investigate the effectiveness of interacting with animations using mobile devices on grade 12 students’ spatial and reasoning abilities. The study took place in a grade 12 context in Oman. A quasi-experimental design was used with an experimental group of 32 students and a control group of 28 students. The experimental group studied chemistry using mobile tablets that had a digital instructional package with different animation and simulations. There was one tablet per student. A spatial ability test and a scientific reasoning test were administered to both groups prior and after the study, which lasted for 9 weeks. The findings showed that there were significant statistical differences between the two groups in terms of spatial ability in favour of the experimental group. However, there were no differences between the two groups in terms of reasoning ability. The authors reasoned that the types of animations and simulations used in the current study featured a wide range of three-dimensional animated illustrations at the particulate level of matter. Most probably, this decreased the level of abstractness that usually accompanies chemical entities and phenomena and helped the students to visualize the interactions between submicroscopic entities spatially. Further research is needed to decide on types of scientific animations that could help students improve their scientific reasoning.     

Are We Neglecting Real Analytical Skills in Engineering Education?

The writer expresses concern with what he claims is the present overemphasis on computational work in engineering education. He argues that there is an over-emphasis on numerical questions in undergraduate examinations in engineering, and that mastery of concepts is not necessarily tested by this type of question. He attempts to demonstrate, and to confirm by means of research which he has carried out in his own department, that the introduction of problems which are not predominantly computational can lead to deeper overall comprehension by learners.

He concludes that quantitative and qualitative understanding are not comparable components of engineering education, since the latter involves and often depends on analysis whereas the former seldom requires more than understanding and application.