Faculty ratings as a measure of departmental and administrator quality

This study examined the usefulness of faculty ratings as a measure of departmental quality. Two hundred and thirty-three faculty members from six departments responded to two questionnaires relating to the department—the Department Evaluation Survey (DES)—and to the department head—the Administrator Evaluation Survey (AES). A factor analysis of the DES revealed three underlying dimensions: Satisfaction with the Department's Academic Environment, Satisfaction with the Department's Governance and Operating Procedures, and Satisfaction with Student Quality. The factor analysis of the AES identified only one underlying dimension. Both the DES and AES were found to be highly reliable and effective in discriminating among departments. Very high positive correlations were also found between selacted DES and AES items suggesting that the performance of the head plays a very important role in faculty perceptions of the departments, and vice versa. Faculty ratings would appear to be a useful initial criterion in evaluating a department or head.     

Letting girls speak out about science

The purpose of this study was to try to determine what influences girls to choose science. Forty girls were interviewed in Grades 2, 5, 8, 11 using a semistructured protocol. The interview focused on feelings about science, science careers, peer and parental support, and how science is taught. To determine whether their responses were based on gender, each girl was asked to respond to questions as if she were a boy. The girls were highly self-confident and positive about science. All of the girls took a strong equity position and asserted that women can and should do science. The girls liked learning science in an interactive social context rather than participating in activities that isolated them such as independent reading, writing, or note taking. Those who chose science careers were drawn to them because of strong affective experiences with a loved one and a desire to help. The interviews were analyzed through the framework of women's affective and psychological needs.     

The effects of various mastery criteria on student performance and attitude in a mastery-oriented course

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of various mastery criteria on student performance and attitude in a course in which mastery learning strategies were employed. Undergraduates in an introductory course in educational psychology were randomly assigned to one of three treatments—one in which mastery criteria gradually increased from 70% to 90%, a second in which mastery criteria gradually decreased from 90% to 70%, or a third in which mastery criteria remained constant at 80%. Results indicated that although the high mastery criterion (90%) had a positive effect on some aspects of quiz performance, it did not have an effect on final examination performance. Results also indicated that students preferred that mastery criteria remain constant during a semester. These findings, when examined in light of previous research, call into question some prior notions regarding the levels at which mastery criteria should be set.     

Is the Door-in-the-Face a Concession?

The Door-in-the-Face (DITF) sequential message strategy was investigated in a three-study analysis of existing experimental findings. The current study predicted there would be a positive relationship between concession size and compliance rates in DITF studies. Study 1 included 25 comparisons where size of concession was quantifiable as measured by percentage reduction from initial to target request in the DITF condition. Study 2 data relied on a panel of undergraduate students to provide an index of concession size in 12 additional observations. A third study validated the panel procedure of rating concession size and also provided 9 additional independent observations from the pool of published studies on DITF. Results from each study indicated a positive relationship between concession size and effect size (r = 0.35, 0.55, 0.68, respectively). Study findings provide support for reciprocal concessions explanation for DITF effects.     

Survey research in higher education

Although textbooks on educational research give only scant attention to survey research methodology, its extensive use in education provides a strong rationale for improving the preparation of educational researchers in effectively applying survey methods. This study reviews methods for dealing with nonresponse bias, the primary problem presented by survey methods. It also provides an updated review of the literature of studies investigating the effectiveness of incentives to increase survey response rates. We hypothesized that a reanalysis of reviewed studies, using a linear trend test, would resolve the inconsistencies found regarding the effectiveness of incentives to increase response rates. The results of the reanalysis and guidelines for educational researchers in systematically selecting and applying incentives to increase response rates are discussed.     

Engaging Undergraduate Kinesiology Students in Clinically-based Research

Many undergraduate students in kinesiology are interested in clinical careers and seek research opportunities for advanced study and unique learning experiences. This article describes a process of engaging undergraduate students in a multi-disciplinary, National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded program project investigating factors that may affect pelvic floor support and symptoms in primiparous women during the first year postpartum. Students complete general and protocol-specific training prior to engagement, have specific tasks that reinforce skill development and require independence, and are invited to participate in additional opportunities with the investigative team. The topic of pelvic floor health is novel to most students and participation in this research expands their knowledge beyond a mainstream kinesiology curriculum. Institutionalizing this type of program could formalize undergraduate student research experiences and facilitate ongoing clinical research efforts with a kinesiology focus.     

Towards another kind of borderlessness: online students with disabilities

Online learning is crucial to success for higher education institutions. Whilst the existing literature predominantly focused on its economic advantages, we focused on its inclusivity. At an online learning unit of a UK university, the number of students with disabilities (SWD) is three times higher than the national average. Having a degree makes significant financial and psychological differences in the lives of SWD. Though recent literature focused on inclusivity of online learning, an appraisal of first-hand experience of SWD studying online is a missing perspective. Accordingly, we aimed to explore their experience, using thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews involving ten SWD. Three themes emerged: (1) having control over studies as an advantage of online learning, (2) personal touch helps SWD’s online learning, and (3) challenges SWD experience with the social element of online learning. Our findings will help to develop the inclusivity of online learning to a new level.     

Feminine sexual desire and shame in the classroom: an educator’s constructions of and investments in sexuality education

ABSTRACT

Within the growing body of literature on sexuality education in South Africa, researchers have highlighted how teachers may face, or themselves be, barriers to the implementation of rights-based comprehensive sexuality education. Important issues with regard to educators are: firstly, the social and discursive space within which educators are located; and secondly, the complex emotional and psychic investments that educators take up within particular discourses and practices. This paper explores, through a psychosocial reading of an interview extract with a particular educator based in the Eastern Cape of South Africa, how discursive and psychic concerns are sutured within the complex subjectivity of the educator as the medium for sexual education in schools. Specifically, it highlights the numerous ways in which feminine sexuality and desire may be avoided, denied and silenced. Even when feminine desire is specifically evoked as in this case, it is done so in a way that ensures social and cultural respectability, thereby reproducing shame narratives that form and maintain traditional gender discourses. Our analysis demonstrates how engaging with educators as subjects with their own sexual history and psychic dynamics, and as individuals with raced, gendered and classed identities, is a potentially transformative perspective for effective sexuality education.     

Teachers' perceptions of the effects of a scientific literary course on subsequent learning in biology

Five teachers were interviewed as to their perceptions of the effect of an intervention to teach scientific literacy on learning in subsequent biology courses. The sample consisted of 450 students who had a literacy course in ninth grade and had completed tenth-grade biology. At the end of the academic year the biology teachers were interviewed and asked to compare the biology students who had the literacy course to students they had taught in earlier years. The biology teachers concluded that the literacy course did have an effect on students' subsequent ability to learn biology. The strength of the effect varied according to level of biology. Students had a better understanding of the nature of science and better laboratory and process skills. They were also better at analyzing data. The advanced and intermediate biology students were more creative, more likely to take risks, and engage in hypothetical thinking than other groups of students that the teachers had taught. Although the purpose of the literacy course was to teach literacy skills the advanced students retained a substantial amount of content material that was applicable to biology.