A meta‐analysis of the effectiveness of telecourses in distance education

Abstract

This study used meta‐analytic procedures to examine experimental research literature about the use of telecourses in adult and higher education. Weighted effect size analysis procedures were used. The study included experiments that used video and either one‐way or two‐way audio. The purpose of this study was to review evidence concerning the effectiveness of telecourses. The instructional features that impacted learner achievement were type of interaction during the broadcast, type of course, and type of remote site. Two‐way interaction was found to be the best method of interaction between learners and the instructor. Most of the studies failed to provide information about their learner attrition rate, thereby casting a shadow on the results.     

The "geography" of child maltreatment in Israel: Findings from a national data set of cases reported to the social services

OBJECTIVES: This article examines the "geography" of reported cases of child maltreatment in Israel by determining its frequency and rates according to nationality, area of residence, and size and type of locality. METHOD: The study collected data at the local level in Israel based on reports to social services of cases of child maltreatment during 2000; locality is the unit of analysis. RESULTS: The rate of reported cases of child maltreatment was 17.8 per 1,000 children in Israel in 2000. The rates varied, however, among different localities. They were lower in Arab localities (9 per 1,000 children) than in the Jewish ones (20 per 1,000), higher in large cities and other socioeconomic affluent localities (19 per 1,000), and varied according to the geographic area. CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrates considerable variation in rates of reported cases of child maltreatment by locality and by population makeup. Thus, to fulfill the Israeli legislation of mandatory reporting of any reasonable suspicion of child maltreatment, the state should better develop policies and services that encourage reporting of child maltreatment among the Arab and ultraorthodox populations and in smaller or socioeconomic disadvantaged localities. Furthermore, the social services must build a bridge to the minority populations in Israel, developing their trust in these services and increasing their propensity to use them.     

Writing home/decolonizing text(s)

The article draws on postcolonial and feminist theories, combined with critical reflection and autobiography, and argues for generating decolonizing texts as one way to write and reclaim home in a postcolonial world. Colonizers leave home to seek power and control elsewhere, and the colonized suffer loss of home as they know it. This dislocation from home is analyzed in terms of the material (outer), educational, and psychic (inner) reaches of colonization. Furthermore, under colonization, the self is split, alienated from itself, ‘home’ becomes rife with contradictions, and text(s) and education are shaped by Eurocentrism and ‘us–them’ binaries. Finally, implications for decolonization – including engaging and generating decolonizing text(s) – are discussed.     

Asking queer(er) questions: epistemological and methodological implications for qualitative inquirers

This collection of distinct scholarly essays deliberatively turns to queer experience and theorizing as a resource for constructing vibrant qualitative research designs. Queer theory offers a breadth of epistemological and methodological possibilities for qualitative projects that are too frequently overlooked for many reasons. These reasons include frequently strict association of queer theory with queer research topics and researchers, as well as a concurrent reluctance to interrogate the representational needs of heterosexist culture served by the metaphor of the ‘closet.’ Queer theory also compels inquiry that takes up the unique circumstances of queer subjects. Locating educational inquiry within globally complex socio-historical dynamics and a post-Obergefell/post-2016 election U.S. context, this article poses multiple trajectories through which various scholars explore queer(er) qualitative inquiry in educational studies. These perspectives invite researchers to rethink qualitative inquiry designs through engagement with the queer, inclusive of research topics not initially perceived to be queer.     

Projecting headcount and credit hour enrollment by age group,gender, and degree level

Political debate about how the changing age distribution of the population would affect higher education enrollments led presidents of Michigan's constitutionally autonomous state universities to sponsor systemwide enrollment projections based on calculations of the participation rates and credit hour loads of 66 student subgroups that were defined by age, gender, and degree level. The 1985 figures were applied to cohort population projections in order to assess the impact of an aging population on the enrollments of 1990, 1995, and 2000. Recession and recovery regression models were then developed and used to explore the 1974–1985 relationship between enrollments and economic variables and to generate alternate projections.Presented at the Twenty-Eighth Annual Forum of the Association for Institutional Research, Phoenix, Ariz., May 1988.     

Children's Social Goals and Self-Efficacy Perceptions as Influences on Their Responses to Ambiguous Provocation

This study examined whether children who vary in their behavioral responses (aggression vs. withdrawal vs. problem solving) to ambiguous provocation but who are similar in their attributional processes differ in their social goals and self-efficacy perceptions. In response to 10 hypothetical situations involving ambiguous provocation, fourth- and fifth-grade students ( n = 781) indicated whether or not the protagonist intended to cause the harm and reported how they would respond to the protagonist's action. Newly developed measures assessed children's situated social goals and self-efficacy perceptions. Results indicated that the aggressive, withdrawn, and problem-solving responders differed in their social goals and self-efficacy perceptions. The strength of the findings, compared to earlier work on children's goals and self-efficacy perceptions, suggests the importance of a situated social-cognitive assessment in which children's thoughts are measured in a specific kind of social situation and are related to their reported behavior in the same type of situation.