Education for literacy

This paper begins by tracing the development of critical scholarship in the sociology of education, focusing on its attempts to explain academic failure for low-income youth. Next, it examines contemporary theoretical work in “critical” literacy—work that appears to have benefited from this sociological scholarship. Third, a brief account is offered of three historical instances of when critical literacy was practiced. Finally, the author concludes by arguing that the needs of culturally diverse and low-income students will be met to the extent that educators and students actively challenge the societal power structure within which they live.     

Science and technology management: Designing an undergraduate course

This research focusses on the role of science educators in preparing technically educated graduates for their careers. A comparison was made between the skills and abilities in science and technology students desired by industrial employers and whether New Zealand graduates exhibit these qualities. To address some of the management-based issues identified by the research, the design of a new Science and Technology Management course is outlined. Specializations: science and technology education, co-operative education, development of professional skills. Specializations: co-operative education programmes.     

Are British Universities in a Position to Consider Implementing Total Quality Management?

Accompanying the removal of the binary divide between polytechnics and universities, the Department of Education and Science (DES) also specified the requirement that the British higher education sector should give more emphasis to the effective management of quality. Some writers have suggested that this can be achieved by institutions introducing the concept of Total Quality Management (TQM). A vital aspect of TQM is the integration of multiple functions across the organization with the objective of establishing a quality conscious workforce. A recommended practice is to use the concept of internal marketing as a mechanism to persuade departments to work together in the creation of internal customer chains. To determine the current status of internal customer management practices in British Universities, a survey of academics was undertaken using a modified version of the Parasuraman SERVQUAL model. The majority of respondents indicated the existence of Type 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 Gaps in the internal customer management process within their institution. Major influencers of these service gaps include minimal effort to gain further understanding of internal customer requirements and a lack of formal quality standards for managing internal customer relations. Respondents consider their faculties are unable to enhance internal quality if the issue was given higher priority by senior management. Identified obstacles to greater emphasis on an internal customer philosophy include insufficient trust between departments and low confidence levels of ability to manage the process. Under these circumstances, it does not appear that for the foreseeable future, British universities are in a position to adopt TQM philosophy. Hence it seems more advisable that these institutions should restrict their quality management activities to the simpler assessment-based approach recommended by the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals (CVCP) Academic Audit Unit.     

Mathematics attainment at inner-city schools: Establishing the need for systematic formative evaluation practices

Recently there has been a great amount of research and professional educator interest in at-risk, poor academically attaining students, especially low socioeconomic status students at U.S. inner-city schools. A major factor that has been hypothesized in the research literature as being associated with poor academic attainment is the lack of critical and timely instructional feedback or formative evaluation. Using a sample of 130 inner-city senior high school students, the perceived quality and quantity of formative evaluation received by these students at their elementary and secondary school levels were assessed. in addition, each student was given a mathematics (pre-algebra) assessment using both a one and two-dimensional format (recognition plus confidence) to determine present levels of mathematics attainment. Finally data were collected from the cumulative grade-level folders of a subset of these students, especially norm-referenced data (NRT) in mathematics, to examine their relationship to scores on the Scholastic Aptitude Test-Quantitiative portion. The study finds that in addition to extremely poor mathematics attainment and poor formative evaluation practices there is little association between SAT (quantitative) scores and the grade-level (mathematics) NRT scores. These findings suggest that parents cannot depend on traditional norm-referenced measures to indicate actual mathematics attainment as these students are progressing through the schools. These findings also challenge urban school administrative personnel to reassess the use of NRT measures to monitor student progress and to develop more comprehensive and systematic formative evaluation procedures and practices for individual students as they progress through each grade level.     

The determinants of progress to the doctoral degree

The time doctoral students expect to take to complete their degree is investigated in a model which stresses the effects of economic factors. The model also accounts for the interdependency among such variables as employment hours, study hours, household income, and part-time study. We find that field of study, amount of borrowing, household income, and study hours have direct effects on expected time to degree. Indirect effects also occur from employment hours and the amount of fellowship, scholarship, or grant aid. When the sample is separated into foreign and U.S. students, we find that U.S. students underestimate their time to degree. Also, household incomes are higher for U.S. students and increase the time to degree, while the opposite is true for foreign students. Teaching assistantships increase the time to degree for foreign students while research assistantships reduce it.     

Do students' style preferences differ by grade level,orientation toward college,and academic major?

Students' preferences for learning styles as well as their preferences for communication styles of their teachers are examined to determine if those preferences are related to gender, grade level, and major in college. A total of 327 adolescents in grades eight through twelve completed questionnaires measuring their preferred learning styles (Dependent, Independent, Competitive, Collaborative, and Participative) and their preferences for teacher communicator styles (Open, Attentive, Relaxes, Precise, Impression Leaving, Dramatic, Friendly, Animated, Contentious, and Dominant). Also, 235 college students in various majors were measured. The rank ordering of preferences was generally stable across all grade levels in the adolescent sample. However, the college students exhibited several important differences in preferences from the adolescents and across majors.     

Successful and less-successful research performance of junior faculty

In academic medical centers, there is increasing concern about the diminishing supply of clinical investigators and the amount of clinical investigation being conducted. This study developed and evaluated an instrument designed to measure characteristics of a successful researcher. All assistant professor faculty in the tenure track at this research university were sent a two-page survey. Analyses revealed that 50 percent of the items significantly discriminated successful and less-successful researchers. A factor analysis of these items produced four stable factors: research activities, mentoring, local networks, and scholarly habits. A backward stepwise discriminant analysis revealed that only two of the four factors were needed to effectively identify successful researchers. These two factors were research activities and scholarly habits. The rate of correct classification of the two-factor equation was such that 92 percent of the successful researchers were correctly identified. Testing this instrument in other academic settings would help to determine its generalizability.     

Graduate credit for prematriculation experiences

Although undergraduates often earn academic credit for prior learning acquired through experience, graduate students are rarely afforded that opportunity. Central Michigan University and The University of Northern Colorado are examples of the very few institutions that do accept prior experiential learning toward graduate degrees. The Council of Graduate Schools in the United States adamantly opposes graduate credit for prematriculation experiences; however, the American Council on Education favors the assessment of extrainstitutional learning which has occurred prior to a student's enrollment. Further, the Council for the Advancement of Experiential Learning recently formed a task force to promote experiential learning in the graduate sector. The future for the assessment of experiential learning for graduate credit is indeed favorable.     

Centralized administration and academic credit base in experiential education

The Off-Campus Term (OCT) Program of the University of South Florida is a model in experiential education of centralized administration and in granting academic credit. In contrast to many programs where the experiential office serves in a coordinating role, but the academic work is under the supervision of classroom faculty, the OCT Program encompasses all of this under one program umbrella. Further, the program is comprehensive in nature providing for any kind of off-campus experience desired by the student. The methods and systems used, both functional and academic, are described along with the strengths and weaknesses of the OCT centralized model.     

Doing time—Killing time at school: An examination of the perceptions and allocations of time among teacher-defined at-risk students

“Doing time” is an expression that is generally associated with prisoners who are disconnected from society and find themselves counting the days and minutes until their release from prison. In many respects, at-risk students attending our nation's large, urban, inner-city middle and high schools also consider themselves as not being connected to school or society and to be “doing time” in the classroom. Qualitative and subjective impressions of doing time at school have become the theme of many movies, books, and research articles. This study extends this qualitative type of research by quantitatively framing time allocation preferences and temporal dominance characteristics for a large sample of teacher-perceived “at-risk” students at several large urban high school sites. A sample of normal attaining students at the same school site served as a comparison group. The findings of this research effort generally support other more qualitative studies and indicate that there are strong preferences in at-risk students toward nondirected time-consuming activities (i.e., hanging out, video games, watching TV, etc.) with low-directed to nondirected time preference ratios. Normal attaining students had the reverse pattern, i.e., higher-directed to nondirected time preference ratios and higher preferences toward directed time-consuming activities that might be associated with investments in the schooling process (homework, studying, personal development, etc.). Interpretation of the circles test, a projective psychological procedure for establishing temporal dominance for at-risk students, revealed a general lack of recognition and connectiveness between past, present, and future events in their life and weak temporal dominance or orientation toward the future.