The Student Assistance Program: higher education’s Holy Grail

This paper outlines an exploratory study conducted within the Sport & Exercise Sciences department at a higher education institution in Wales. Prior to the study it was identified that personal tutors were spending an increasing amount of time dealing with pastoral issues. This research sought to investigate the implementation of the Student Assistance Program, a peer-support group, to reduce the pastoral burden on staff and improve retention and to assess any changes in student behaviour. At the end of the programme students were asked to evaluate the experience by means of a simple questionnaire that also gave them the opportunity to add some open-ended responses. In addition, the facilitators were also given the opportunity to comment on the programme using a similar open-ended questionnaire. Data were analysed using qualitative analysis. The results were encouraging and changes occurred within the students who participated in the pilot study.     

In/forming education policy

Policy makers in a variety of sites are embracing initiatives that attempt to tighten the links between school and work. A reinvented human capital discourse argues that more highly skilled workers are required to meet the demands of the ‘knowledge economy’. This paper explores the new vocationalism as it is promoted within the Framework for Enhancing Business Involvement, a policy report produced in 1996 in Alberta, Canada. Using a critical policy approach, this paper focuses on the process of developing this document with attention to the policy context, influences on the process, ideological assumptions and the impact of the document since its release. Analysis suggests that questions of representation in policy processes, accountability for outcomes and the role of public interests in multi-stakeholder consultation are critical in this era of new public management practices. Further, despite the impression of unity and consensus suggested by policy documents, there are tensions in vocational education and policy that must be addressed if they are also to promote equity.     

‘Bright lights’ and ‘twinkies’: career pathways in an education market

This article problematises the construction of regulation as an effective manager of risks to children in early childhood education and care (ECEC) services. Adopting a Foucaldian, governmentalist approach to regulation and risk, the authors suggest that governments in Australia have ‘risk colonised’ regulation to meet their own interests rather than make effective use of regulation as a mechanism for quality assurance. They propose that the risk colonising of regulation has not effectively addressed societal risks to children in ECEC services, and has generated its own risks to quality standards through a preoccupation with institutional risk. In these ways, ‘the laugh of Foucault’ resounds in the regulation of ECEC services.     

Influence of gender and academic ability in a computer‐based Spanish reading task

In order to determine the effects of gender and scholastic ability on vocabulary retention and reading comprehension in a foreign language, 181 men and women enrolled in a first‐year Spanish course were asked to either read a passage in Spanish on a computer and create annotations for a list of words found in the passage (experimental group), or simply to read the already annotated passage (control group). They were administered vocabulary and reading comprehension tests, and a questionnaire concerning their attitude toward the task. Results showed rather complex interactions between the variables of sex and ability. Although the differences overall failed to achieve statistical significance, an analysis of the attitude questions separately resulted in several significant interactions for gender.     

Beyond Reasonable Doubt? Researching ‘race’ in educational settings

Abstract

This article is intended to highlight some of the main features about race‐related research in education as it is configured in the 1990s. More specifically, it reflects on the status of antiracist research and addresses the thorny issue of the legitimacy of research which is explicitly ‘partisan’. In offering a position statement on partisan research I am particularly concerned with addressing the question: to what extent is the term, ‘partisan research’, an oxymoron? ^{1 1}This article started life as a contribution to the Racial Equality in Initial Teacher Education project, funded by the Leverhulme Trust (Reference Number F215A.E). I am grateful to Leverhulme and to colleagues on the project for their support in its initial stages. Thanks also to David Halpin, Derek Layder, Sally Tomlinson, Carol Vincent and, in particular, Martyn Denscombe for acting as ‘critical friends’ in the later phases.

     

TEACHING UNIVERSITY STUDENTS FAMILY CAREGIVING ONLINE

This article describes an online course developed and currently offered at Middle Tennessee State University. Considering the statistics of family caregivers, their needs, and students’ and human service professionals’ education, the author demonstrates the necessity of such courses and their benefits. The author also considers the standards for online Social Work education. Because there are more than 54 million family caregivers providing 80% of all home health care, recommendations for further study into caregiving courses, their content, and usefulness are given. The article includes student testimonials, course objectives, and links to course websites and the WebCT system that provides the course's platform.     

EDITORIAL COMMENT

Service-learning is an ideal teaching approach to use in courses on the psychology of aging because it allows experiential education to be actively integrated with classroom instruction. This article describes the results of adding a service-learning option to a lecture course on the psychology of aging. For this course, service-learning took place at local nursing homes, area retirement communities, and the local community center, which houses an activity program for older adults. Each student was required to complete 30 hr community service-learning during the semester, maintain a journal, write a summary paper, join a reflection group, and participate in a group presentation. Students were involved in a wide range of activities, from assisting with a hot lunch program to spending time talking with nursing home residents. Evaluation of the effectiveness of this approach was established by using open-ended student evaluations that were completed at the end of the semester. Data were gathered over 2 years from the portion of the class (approximately one third) each semester) who chose to complete a one-credit service-learning experience. The service-learning component significantly enhanced the course experience for the students, instructor, graduate and undergraduate teaching assistants, and facilities involved. Overall, the majority of students affirmed that their participation in the service-learning project related well to the course, and facility responses to student service-learning participants were overwhelmingly positive.     

From Cognitive Modeling to Self-Regulation: A Social Cognitive Career Path

My career path to understanding the source and nature of human learning started with an interest in social processes, especially cognitive modeling, and has led to the exploration of self-regulatory processes. My investigation of these processes has prompted the development of several social cognitive models: a triadic model that synthesized covert, behavioral, and environmental sources of personal feedback, a multilevel model of training that begins with observational learning and proceeds sequentially to self-regulation, and a cyclical phase model that depicts the interaction of metacognitive and motivational processes during efforts to learn. Empirical support for each of these models is discussed, including its implications for formal and informal forms of instruction. This self-regulation research has revealed that students who set superior goals proactively, monitor their learning intentionally, use strategies effectively, and respond to personal feedback adaptively not only attain mastery more quickly, but also are more motivated to sustain their efforts to learn. Recommendations for future research are made.     

Training maltreating parents in elaborative and emotion-rich reminiscing with their preschool-aged children

Objective

In the current study, the effects of training maltreating parents and their preschool-aged children in elaborative and emotion-rich reminiscing were examined.

Method

44 Parent-child dyads were randomly assigned to a training (reminiscing) or wait-list (control) condition. All participating parents had substantiated maltreatment and were involved with the Department of Child Services at the time of enrollment. Children were 3–6 years old (M = 4.88, SD = .99) and living in the custody of the participating parent. Dyads in the reminiscing condition received four, weekly, in-home sessions in elaborative and emotion rich reminiscing.

Results

At a follow-up assessment, maltreating parents in the reminiscing condition provided more high-elaborative utterances, references to children's negative emotions, and explanations of children's emotion during reminiscing than did parents in the control condition. Children in the reminiscing condition had richer memory recall and made more emotion references than did children in the control condition during reminiscing with their mothers, but not with an experimenter.

Conclusion

The findings suggest that maltreating parents can be taught elaborative and emotion-rich reminiscing skills, with benefits for child cognitive and emotional development. The potential clinical utility of a reminiscing-based training for maltreating families with young children is discussed.     

Examining the effectiveness of home-based parent aide services to reduce risk for physical child abuse and neglect: Six-month findings from a randomized clinical trial

Objective

This study set out to carry out a feasible, real-world, randomized clinical trial to examine the benefits of home-based paraprofessional parent aide services in reducing physical abuse and neglect risk in high-risk parents.

Methods

Families were randomly assigned to receive either parent aide plus case management services (n = 73) or case management services only (n = 65), collecting in-home data on physical child abuse and neglect and proximal risk and protective factors, just prior to service initiation, and again after six months of services.

Results

Mothers receiving parent aide and case management services reported significant improvements from baseline to six-month follow-up in self-reported indicators of physical child abuse risk, as well as improvements on parental stress, mastery, depression, and anxiety, whereas mothers receiving only case management services did not. The slopes of such observed changes across groups, however, were not found to be statistically significantly different. No discernable improvements were found with regard to indicators of risk for child neglect.

Conclusions

As the first randomized clinical trial examining the effectiveness of parent aide services, this study provides the first controlled evidence examining the potential benefits of this service modality. This study suggests promising trends regarding the benefit of parent aide services with respect to physical child abuse risk reduction and related predictors, but evidence does not appear to suggest that such services, as they are presently delivered, reduce child neglect.

Practice implications

These findings support the continued use of parent aide services in cases of physical child abuse and also suggest careful consideration of the ways such services may be better configured to extend their impact, particularly with respect to child neglect risk.