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.     

Toward leadership in professional education: Vocations for the future

Professional education in the future will require a different kind of relationship between the non-traditional student, the professional school, and the employer. Central to this new relationship is a recognition of the importance of acknowledging the areas of collaboration and institutionalizing these elements without ignoring the critical strengths of both institutions. This integration is most important in the professions of the future and especially the professions of human services.where his major commitment is to broaden the education and practice skills in each of the five undergraduate and graduate programs. He was formerly Dean of the College of Human Services in New York.     

Response to the discipline review of teacher education in mathematics and science

This paper relates to a study commissioned by the Department of Employment, Education and Training to evaluate the impact of the Discipline Review of Teacher Education in Mathematics and Science. The major datagathering strategies employed in that study have been to visit every higher education institution in Australia involved in teacher education to interview relevant staff and to seek information by mail from other bodies to whom recommendations of the Review were addressed. This paper reports a supplementary activity, the analysis of citations of the Report of the Discipline Review in the journal of the Australasian Science Education Research Association,Research in Science Education. This research reveals that there has been relatively little critical analysis of the Review, somewhat surprising in the light of its significance for science teacher education. Further the citations in the journal suggest that the Review Report has struck a responsive chord with those involved in the science education of primary school teachers. Its impact on secondary teacher education would appear to be less significant. This difference is explored in the context of professional education. Specializations: science education, teacher education. Specializations: international education, educational measurement, science education.     

Japan: Meeting the challenge of computers in education

Conclusion The conditions that prepare the way for integrating computers in the curriculum are being successfully addressed in Japan. Computers have definitely found their way into the classroom, and more computers will be purchased by the Japanese government in the next year or two. The groundwork has also been laid in teacher training and in upgrading the quality of instructional software. The issue now lies in being able to teach not onlyabout computers, but how to teach effectivelywith computers. The next challenge for Japanese education is to focus on policy and efforts aimed at putting the equipment, the software guidelines, and the teacher education programs to work.She was in Hiroshima, Japan, in 1993 as an exchange professor at Yasuda Women's University.The author would like to thank Mr. Toru Iiyoshi of the International Christian University in Tokyo; Ms. Mochizuki of the Center for Educational Technology in Tokyo; and the director and staff of the Center for Educational Computing in Tokyo for their assistance with research materials.