College Counselors' Perceptions of Working With First‐Year Students With Chronic Illnesses

Despite increased interest in college students' success, there has been little research regarding students entering college with chronic illnesses such as asthma, diabetes, and cancer. This qualitative study examined 15 college counselors' perceptions of working with first‐year students with chronic illnesses. Four themes emerged from the findings: counseling preparation, interactions, counseling interventions, and needs of students. The authors discuss implications for college counseling training and practice and directions for future research.     

Exploring the Values Undergraduate Students Attribute to Cross-disciplinary Skills Needed for the Workplace: an Analysis of Five STEM Disciplines

Journal of Science Education and Technology - Employers in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields report that recent graduates are deficient in important skills such as...     

Identifying and developing rugby talent among 10-year-old boys: a practical model

The re-entry of South Africa into the international sporting arena and the resultant need for the identification and development of talent, especially among formerly deprived groups of people, provided the incentive for this study. Its aim was to identify the physical, motor and anthropometric variables that will enable coaches to identify 10-year-old boys, based on their abilities, who could become successful rugby players. Altogether, 173 ten-year-old boys with no rugby experience from a cross-section of the population were selected at random and subjected to 14 physical and motor tests and 14 anthropometric measurements. From 22 schools which participated in the Western Transvaal primary schools under-11 rugby league, the three top teams (n = 45 individuals) were selected and also tested. The results from these three teams were used as the criteria for rugby talent among 10-year-old boys. To establish the best predictors of talent, a stepwise discriminant analysis was conducted: this indicated eight variables (four motor and four anthropometric) that discriminated maximally between the talented and the rest of the players of this age. With classification functions based on these eight variables, 93.8% of all the subjects were classified correctly, indicating good validity. A canonical analysis, based on the selected variables, was then conducted on all the under-11 teams that played in the league in the region (n = 330), and they were ranked according to the scores of the first canonical variable from the most to the least talented. By comparing these results with the players who were chosen for the region's primary schools team, a success rate of 88% in prediction of talent was established. We conclude that this is a successful and practical method to aid the teacher and the coach in selecting and developing talent among 10-year-old rugby players in South Africa.     

‘Raise Her Right’: (mis)representing authentic women sports fans in US advertising

This study explores how women sports fans have engendered a boom of US advertising images and narratives that comply, confound and resist traditional gendered roles. Against the backdrops of the gender regime and hegemonic masculinity, this analysis interrogates female fan typologies to illustrate how female fandom is constructed and constrained through advertising. This piece focuses on five television advertisements broadcast throughout the 2015–2016 NFL play-offs and NCAA tournaments. This article also explores online responses to the ads to indicate how commercial interests reflect our popular imagination regarding female sports fandom. Often, these images reinforce female fans as mothers, love interests and objects while idealizing heteronormative, feminine physical attractiveness. These strategies position female fans not as agents but as fans in relation to the hegemony. Ultimately, this reasserts men as privileged, authentic sports fans even as women’s presence and access to sports is legitimized.     

An interactional analysis of one-to-one pastoral care delivery within a primary school

Despite an interactional analysis being able to offer valuable insight into the institutional workings of pastoral care practice, pastoral care delivery remains largely unstudied. This paper will contribute new knowledge to the field of counselling and education by offering an interactional analysis of one-to-one pastoral care provision within a primary school. Much pastoral care practice is informed by theory, often accompanied by guidelines about how to deliver pastoral care activities effectively. The pastoral carer needs to convert these guidelines into talk in order to deliver the intervention as an interactional encounter. However useful these guidelines are, they cannot show what the actual delivery of those pastoral care activities might look like in real life. Using conversation analysis, we examine video recordings of pastoral care delivery to reveal the ways in which a pastoral carer supports a child’s behaviour, social and emotional well-being. The significance of the findings is that those who provide pastoral care can see in close detail what delivery might look like as a real-life encounter, imparting valuable knowledge that can then be applied alongside theory and guidelines to enhance professional practice. Of further significance is that the findings can also show how an interactional analysis of pastoral care work can be used to demonstrate social and emotional learning and that the work being done effectively supports children.     

Diversity in Basic Education in South Africa: intersectionality and Critical Diversity Literacy

The notion of essentialised racial difference was a keystone of apartheid education which served to cement white supremacy in South Africa. More recently there is a need for socially-just education that requires a robust analytical orientation in interrogating power, privilege and difference. Therefore this article engages the following questions: What are the philosophical, epistemological and pedagogical underpinnings of diversity in education in South Africa?; and What is the possible role of diversity literacy in fostering an active and participatory citizenship in the years ahead? We engage conceptually with the understanding of diversity in education in South Africa, followed by the presentation of a framework – Critical Diversity Literacy (CDL) – and a series of curricular questions emerging from this framework that might be pedagogically useful when engaging issues of power, privilege and difference in teacher training. CDL potentially addresses the weaknesses in previous approaches to engaging with issues of diversity in education and offers grounded, contemporary, and authentic opportunities for decolonising classroom content and practice.     

A systematic review on the deployment and effectiveness of data analytics in higher education to improve student outcomes

Abstract

This is a systematic review conducted of primary research literature published between 2007 and 2018 on the deployment and effectiveness of data analytics in higher education to improve student outcomes. We took a methodological approach to searching databases; appraising and synthesising results against predefined criteria. We reviewed research on the effectiveness of three differentiated forms of data analytics: learning, academic and learner analytics. Student outcomes are defined as retention, academic performance and engagement. Our results find that three quarters of studies report the use of educational data analytics to be effective in improving student outcomes but their relationship with student outcomes requires further and more robust investigation and assessment. We argue that research must interpret and communicate effectiveness qualitatively, as well as quantitatively, by including the student voice in assessments of impact.     

University research centers as knowledge translation platforms: leveraging structure,support and resources to enhance multisectoral collaboration and advocacy

Tertiary Education and Management - Knowledge Translation Platforms (KTPs) have drawn attention as multidisciplinary institutional structures that broker evidence to policy and practice. University...     

Eliciting student feedback for course development: the application of a qualitative course evaluation tool among business research students

Student evaluations of teaching and learning are playing an increasingly important role in the delivery of high-quality, student-centred education. Insights into student perceptions of their learning experience provide important information that can be used to inform course design and development. The majority of course evaluations take the form of quantitative surveys, but research suggests that a reliance on survey data alone can be problematic from a teaching and learning perspective. Qualitative course evaluations have been cited as a viable alternative to quantitative evaluations, but less research has been conducted into their efficacy when compared to quantitative evaluations. The study on which this article reports attempted to contribute to addressing this shortcoming by describing and assessing a novel approach to eliciting qualitative feedback from students in a research methodology course at a higher education institution in South Africa. Conventional content analysis was used to analyse the qualitative feedback received from students. The qualitative course evaluation approach was then appraised in terms of the degree to which it has the potential to overcome the shortcomings associated with quantitative course evaluations and the extent to which the information gathered could be used to improve the design and delivery of the academic programme.     

Student or scholar? Transforming identities through a research writing group

This article explores the role a writing group played in influencing the scholarly identities of a group of doctoral students by fostering their writing expertise. While the interest in writing groups usually centres on their potential to support doctoral students to publish, few studies have been conducted and written by the students themselves. Using a situated learning perspective on identity, we explore the connection that emerged between our perceptions of ourselves as developing expertise as scholarly writers and the function of the writing group as a dynamic space for transforming our identities. Findings show that our writing group served as a flexible and interactive Community of Practice (CoP) that shaped critical and durable shifts in identity amongst members.