Training the Ethanol Workforce: The Importance of Partners in Niche Program Development

Educational, industry, and state leaders worked together to design a program to meet the training needs of Nebraska's fast-growing ethanol industry. The statewide initiative, guided by Northeast Community College and funded through the President's Community-Based Job Training Grants program, is developing dual-credit, short-term training that leads to a certificate, and degree programs in renewable fuels technology.     

ADULT UNDERGRADUATE ACADEMIC PARTICIPATION

The purpose of the present study was to explore the relationship between 10 independent variables and undergraduate academic participation within a weekend college environment. The four demographic variables were age, educational attainment, job type and work setting. The six variables contained in Cross' Chain of Response Model (self‐evaluation of ability, attitudes towards education, goals and expectancy, life transitions, opportunities and barriers, and information) were also investigated. Three levels of participation were identified low, medium, and high. An ex post facto design was employed in the present study. Data were gathered through the administration of a survey instrument to 220 adult students enrolled in a weekend‐degree program. Cronbach's alpha was used to assess instrument sub‐test internal consistency. Internal consistency coefficients ranged between .63 to .88. A statistically significant relationship was found under discriminant function analysis with alpha = .05 between participation and all variables except job type and work setting. Under chi‐square analysis, there was found no relationship between job type or work setting and paticipation. There were no differences found under univariate anaylsis of variance with alpha = .05 between the remaining eight variables and level of participation except self‐evaluation of ability where high participators exhibited greater self‐confidence in their ability than low participators.     

Phoneme Awareness,Visual-Verbal Paired-Associate Learning,and Rapid Automatized Naming as Predictors of Individual Differences in Reading Ability

This study examines the concurrent relationships between phoneme awareness, visual-verbal paired-associate learning, rapid automatized naming (RAN), and reading skills in 7- to 11-year-old children. Path analyses showed that visual-verbal paired-associate learning and RAN, but not phoneme awareness, were unique predictors of word recognition, whereas visual-verbal paired-associate learning, RAN, and phoneme awareness were predictors of nonword reading. These results suggest that visual-verbal paired-associate learning, RAN, and phoneme awareness tap related but far-from-identical processes and are important predictors of different aspects of reading skills in children.     

How Home Enrichment Mediates the Relationship Between Maternal Education and Children's Achievement in Reading and Math

Research Findings: This article addresses the mediating role of early childhood home enrichment in the association between maternal education and academic achievement in the reading and math of 1,093 children aged 7 (Grade 1). Data were extracted from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development database. We used the bootstrapping procedure, a new method recently developed to assess multiple mediator effects simultaneously. Five potential mediating aspects of naturally occurring enriching home environments (HOME) were measured at 54 months of age: learning materials, learning stimulation, parental responsiveness, modeling of social maturity, and variety in experience. Gender differences in the mediating role of aspects of home enrichment were also examined for the letter–word reading and math subscales of the Woodcock–Johnson Psychoeducational Battery–Revised. Results indicated that all 5 aspects of home enrichment mediated the association between maternal education and reading achievement, and 4 aspects of home enrichment mediated this association for math achievement. Some aspects of home enrichment were gender specific. Practice or Policy: Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.     

Improving the CBT Development Process Through Knowledge Sharing: An Empirical Study

In this paper, techniques from the research field of knowledge management are used to improve the maturity of the Computer Based Training (CBT) development process at an IT-oriented organization involved in producing courseware. The project team is facilitated with a knowledge-sharing solution that enables them to unambiguously define their project process, and link templates and best practices to the activities in that process. In addition, a virtual discussion room is provided for them to share new insights. Results from measurement experiments indicate more positive project experiences with projects that used the knowledge-sharing solution.     

A Complex Case: Using the case study method to explore uncertainty and ambiguity in undergraduate business education

The case method is a definitive and foundational technology in business education. It was first developed as a vocational training tool equipping students for future employment. In this conception, the organisation was seen as a machine, and managers as the engineers who would maintain it through planned interventions. The case method allowed aspiring managers to practise intervention skills in a safe environment. Since the origins of the case method in US business schools before the First World War, conceptions of organisations have moved on. They are no longer seen as machine-like, but as complex, ambiguous, and protean. The 'wicked' problems that potential managers will face in an uncertain world require the development of critical thinking and sensemaking abilities. While the traditional approach to the case continues, its use as a vehicle to explore and manage complexity and ambiguity is emerging, although this is facing resistance from some students and staff.     

Learning about movies: the impact of movie release types on the nationwide box office

Major Hollywood studios typically release new movies in North America in one of the two ways, wide release or platform release. In this paper, we investigate how release form affects the demand of a new movie after it is nationally released. In particular, we focus on movies for which the platform release is pre-planned to make the problem tractable. We estimate our model using a sample of Hollywood movies that eventually received nationwide release from 1999 to 2003. Our results show that platform release shifts consumers’ perception of unobservable movie appeal through its first stage performance, which turns out to be a stronger effect than that of advertising. Meanwhile, we find that the demand for platform movies decays faster than for wide release ones after their national release. Using counterfactual analysis, we find that more than half of the platform movies which later went to national release would have earned higher profits if they had been given a wide release.