Increasing the Career Decision-Making Self-Efficacy of Nontraditional College Students

Nontraditional college students (29 women and 37 men) participated in a career counseling workshop based on Bandura's (1977) self-efficacy theory. Participants were randomly assigned to either an experimental treatment group or a delayed-treatment control group. Results suggested that participation in the workshop had a significant, positive effect on the career decision-making self-efficacy of the participants (p < .05) across levels of age, sex, year in college, and family income. Results provide support for career self-efficacy theory and indicate that the career decision-making self-efficacy of nontraditional college students is amenable to change through counseling interventions.     

Cognitive processes underlying WISC-R performance of gifted and learning disabled navajos

The purpose of this study was to provide an empirical basis for the interpretation of the WISC-R performance of Navajo children according to the Luria-Das Model of Simultaneous and Successive cognitive processes. Two groups of Native American Navajo subjects, 45 learning disabled and 41 gifted, were given the WISC-R. The scores on those subtests expected to involve Successive and Simultaneous processes were factor analyzed for each group and two factors were extracted. The factors, essentially similar for both samples, were interpreted to reflect the Successive and the Simultaneous modes of processing information as suggested by the Luria-Das Model. The gifted and learning disabled children had disparate loadings for some of the subtests, suggesting that the two groups may be using distinct modes of coding information.     

Intelligent Job Aids For Professionals: Lessons Learned From Medicine

With the rapid advancements in artificial intelligence, computer science, and information management seen today, it is becoming increasingly feasible to improve the performance of professional white collar workers with intelligent job aids (i.e., expert systems). Already, performance technologists are advocating and predicting their wide spread adoption. Nevertheless, while such high tech performance interventions are relatively new to business, they have existed in medical research labs and clinics for nearly 20 years. Because of the almost ideal match between medical decision making and the emergent capabilities of knowledge engineering, artificial intelligence researchers made medicine one of their major testing grounds. In this article, I summarize the use of intelligent job aids in medicine as a source of insights for anticipating how they can and should be used by professionals in other areas. These insights include three generalizations which form the conclusion of the paper: (a) intelligent job aids must address a real need, (b) they must be compatible with professionals' larger “performance systems,” and (c) the adoption of intelligent job aids will depend as much on future trends as on the professionals' needs or performance systems.     

A Model of the Relationship between University Computer Laboratory Environment and Student Outcomes

This study focused on the use of computer laboratory classes in university courses. Two previously developed instruments, the Computer Laboratory Environment Inventory (CLEI) and the Attitude towards Computing and Computing Courses (ACCC), were used. The CLEI has five scales measuring students' perceptions of aspects of their laboratory environment: Student Cohesiveness, Open-Endedness, Integration, Technology Adequacy, and Laboratory Availability. The ACCC has four scales, namely, Anxiety, Enjoyment, Usefulness of Computers, and Usefulness of the Course. These instruments were administered to a sample of 208 students taking computing courses within the Business School at Curtin University of Technology in Western Australia. The sample covered specialist programming courses as well as courses in which the students use software tools such as spreadsheets. The results showed that there were statistically significant associations between achievement and the attitudinal variables of Anxiety, Enjoyment and Usefulness of the Course. Regression analysis supported the findings that the learning environment variables made a significant contribution to the variance in attitudinal variables, and these in turn made a significant contribution to achievement variance. A two-level model was proposed and analysed using Structural Equation Modelling. This supported the hypothesis that the computer laboratory environment affects achievement indirectly by directly affecting students' attitudes.     

Teacher-student classroom interactions among science students of different sex and cultural background

The purpose of this study was to determine associations between science students' perceptions of their interactions with their teachers, the cultural background of students and their attitudinal and cognitive achievement outcomes. A sample of 3,215 students from 158 secondary school science classes in 43 schools completed a survey including the Questionnaire on Teacher Interaction (QTI), an attitude to calss scale, an enquiry skills scale and questions relating to cultural background. The sample was chosen in order tobe representative, though only coeducational classes were used in order to permit an unconfounded test of sex differences. Statistical analyses confirmed the reliability and validity of the QTI for secondary school science students. Generally, the dimensions of the QTI were found to besignificantly associated with student attitude scores. In particular, students' attitude scores were higher in classrooms in which students perceived greater leadership, helping/friendly, and understanding behaviours in their teachers. Correlations between cognitive achievement and interpersonal behaviour were not as strong, but there were positive associations with cooperative behaviours and negative associations with oppositional behaviours. Females perceived their teachers in a more positive way than did males and students from an Asian background tended to perceive their teachers more positively than those from the other cultural groups identified in the study.     

Research: an insight on how it is valued by Portuguese and English teacher educators

ABSTRACT

The quality of how teachers are being prepared is seen as a priority in the twenty-first century and engagement with research is often considered a crucial element of initial teacher education programmes. Institutional and national contexts have an impact in the way research is valued. This paper investigates the perspectives of Portuguese and English teacher educators towards the value given to research in initial teacher education. Interviews were completed with teacher educators working within different kinds of higher education institutions—university, polytechnic and teaching-led university. Results suggest that research has a significant presence and relevance in all cases but is valued differently     

Academic induction for professional educators: supporting the workplace learning of newly appointed lecturers in teacher and nurse education

In the UK, most initial nurse and teacher education is provided by university departments working in partnership with local health trusts and schools. New university lecturers in these professional fields are generally selected due to their successful performance as practitioners, as nurses or school teachers, rather than on more traditional requirements for appointment as an academic focusing on scholarship. This project investigates the workplace learning and identity‐building experiences of nurses and of school teachers in their first four years in higher education lecturer posts. It aims to inform practice in academic induction for these groups of staff. In the case study institution, the new lecturers find their transition to higher education challenging and confusing because of tensions over what a lecturer should be. They tend to hold on to existing identities as practitioners rather than embracing new identities as academics. The implications for academic induction of these lecturers are considered.

Au Royaume‐Uni, la plupart des programmes de formation initiale des infirmiers et des enseignants sont donnés par des départements universitaires, en collaboration avec les agences locales de santé et les écoles. Les nouveaux enseignants universitaires dans ces domaines professionnels sont généralement choisis en raison de leurs performances positives à titre de praticiens – infirmiers ou enseignants – plutôt qu'en raison de critères davantage traditionnels de nomination liés à la recherche académique. Ce projet étudie les expériences d'apprentissage sur le terrain et de construction d'identité d'infirmiers et d'enseignants durant leurs premières quatre années d'enseignement universitaire. Il vise à informer la pratique d'intronisation académique pour ces catégories de personnel. Dans l'institution visée par l'étude de cas, les nouveaux enseignants jugent leur transition vers l'enseignement supérieur remplie de défis et porteuse de confusion en raison des tensions au sujet de ce qu'un enseignant universitaire devrait être. Les nouveaux enseignants tendent à s'accrocher à leur identité existante de praticien plutôt que de se tourner vers leur nouvelle identité d'universitaire. Les implications en matière d'intronisation académique pour ces enseignants sont présentées.     

Development and use of an instrument for assessing the department-level work environment: The department-level environment questionnaire (DLEQ)

There has been little research into the work environments of teachers at the subject department level. Understanding and investigating the work environment at this level could provide insight into the type of work environment that might lead teachers to remain in the teaching profession. This article reports the development, validation and use of a work environment instrument at the subject department level. The department-level environment questionnaire (DLEQ) was developed using the school-level environment questionnaire as the parent instrument. Both Actual and Preferred Forms of the DLEQ were used. Early-career secondary school science teachers’ perceptions of the actual and preferred science department environment in New Zealand were sought. In addition, interviews with 17 % of the participants were conducted in order to find out why the teachers answered the questionnaire in the way that they did. The findings highlight the needs of this particular group of teachers. Future research opportunities for further instrument development and use of the instrument are suggested.