Training tomorrow's anatomists today: A partnership approach

Anatomy is recognized to play a central role in the education and training of clinicians, healthcare professionals, and scientists. However, in recent years, the perceived decline in popularity of anatomy has led to a deficiency in the numbers of new anatomy educators. The tide is now turning with anatomy once again taking its rightful place in a wide of variety of disciplines, and therefore it is imperative that a new generation of anatomists is in place to meet this need. In response, the Anatomical Society of Great Britain and Ireland has made the training of the next set of anatomists, one of its strategic priorities, and in collaboration with the American Association of Anatomists has developed a dedicated Training Program. The overall aim of the Program is to provide trainees with the necessary knowledge, understanding, aptitudes, and attitudes in appropriate detail, sufficient to enable them to teach and examine Anatomy with full competence at the undergraduate and postgraduate level. The Program offers opportunities to consolidate knowledge and deepen understanding of anatomy, improve skills in teaching and communication with students, and be competent in preparing teaching materials and assessment modalities. The Program uses a distance‐learning approach with an incorporated Residential School and is particularly aimed at those undertaking a career in the biosciences. Early indications suggest that initiatives such as the development of this Training Program will help deliver the next generation of anatomists and ensure that anatomy continues to play a fundamental role in the education of clinicians, healthcare professionals, and scientists. Anat Sci Ed 2:119‐125, 2009 © 2009 American Association of Anatomists.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

Teachers' Images of their Schools and Perceptions of their Work Environments

The Images of Schools through Metaphor (ISM) was developed as a simple, economical questionnaire to allow school leaders and researchers to survey teachers' images of their school. The article describes briefly aspects of the development and validation of this questionnaire and its application in an investigation of relationships between teachers' images of their schools and their perceptions of its work environment as assessed by the School Level Environment Questionnaire (SLEQ). The sample used consisted of 162 teachers in 48 schools in Tasmania, Australia, each of whom completed both the ISM and the SLEQ. The various results revealed were generally of considerable statistical significance indicating a strong relationship between the images teachers have of their school and the perceptions they have of its work environment.     

Accounting for Variation in Science and Mathematics Achievement: A Multilevel Analysis of Australian Data Third International Mathematics and Science Study (Timss)

One of the most consistent themes evident in the literature dealing with rural education is that of rural disadvantage. Much research and literature indicates that students from rural schools receive an education that is inferior to that of students from larger urban or suburban schools. Of the matrix of factors reported to lead to that disadvantage, geographical isolation and the extent to which it restricts access is reported to result in rural schools not having the same standard of resource allocation as urban schools where access is not a problem. This study addresses the issue of resource availability in rural and urban Australian schools and includes the variables: students' attitudes towards science and mathematics and career aspirations of these students. The analysis includes socioeconomic status and gender of these students and investigates how these variables relate to student achievement. Do students in rural schools have the same educational opportunity as students in urban schools? In this study a multilevel model is used which takes into account the classroom level variance in student achievement as well as individual variance and school level variance.