Peer‐assisted Student Support at the University of Glamorgan: innovating the learning process?

This article analyses the overall performance of the Peer‐Assisted Student Support (PASS) Scheme in the Business School at the University of Glamorgan. Observations were made over a seven‐week period to measure the effectiveness of the scheme in terms of enhancing the student learning process. Weekly attendance was measured to establish patterns of demand in terms of age, gender and mentored subject area. Further quantitative and qualitative research was undertaken to provide an insight into the perceived benefits of the scheme in relation to student social development and academic performance. The empirical findings of this article show that PASS attendance is female dominated. Moreover, the research suggests that contrary to previous research, the majority of benefactors reside in the under‐21 age group. The findings also highlight that academic and laboratory‐based subjects are a considerable strain on PASS resources and more significantly superior academic performance is positively correlated with regular PASS attendance.     

School‐based Management — pointing directions for twenty‐first century elementary and middle school principals

As man rushes to the dawn of the twenty‐first century, his society and our own system of education are engulfed in widespread changes. One of these provocative changes is the new move to the site‐based management concept whereby principals become the chief school officers of their own school site. The school principal, in essence, is to have complete control and responsibility over his/her school — the superintendent does not dictate, but rather, negotiates all school business with his principals. In light of this new movement, these two authors draw a parallel between past and present expectations of building principals and submit a planning model for on‐site managerial administrators to inspect, study and implement in accordance with their own needs. The reader is provided with an array of perspectives with which on‐site administrators must deal if total assumption of school‐site business and school programming becomes a reality in the USA and universally.     

Recollections of sexual socialisation among marginalised heterosexual black men

This paper describes the sexual socialisation process of marginalised, drug-using heterosexual black men, focusing primarily on the sources and content of sexual information. Analysing qualitative interview data, we discovered that the men in our sample both learn about sex and become sexually active at an early age. They most often learn about sex from the media and least often learn about sex from family members. The content of sexual information varies in specifics, but overall tends to equate sex with pleasure, encourage sexual activity with multiple partners and emphasise using protection. Our goal is to use this data to better understand how sexual socialisation contributes to the prevalence of multiple sexual partners and high rates of HIV among heterosexual black men in order to inform future risk-reduction intervention programmes.     

Associative structure of integrated temporal relationships

According to the temporal-coding hypothesis (TCH; Savastano & Miller, Behavioural Processes 44:147–162, 1998), acquired associations include temporal information concerning the interval between the associated elements. Moreover, the TCH posits that subjects can integrate two independently acquired associations that share a common element (e.g., S2–S1 and S1–US), which results in the creation of a third association with its own temporal relationship (S2–US). Some evidence has suggested that such temporal integration occurs at the time of testing (Molet, Miguez, Cham, & Miller, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes 38:369–380, 2012). Here we report two fear-conditioning experiments with rats conducted to identify the associative structure of the integrated temporal relationship. The goal was to distinguish between two possible associative structures that could exist following an initial test on which temporal integration occurs: (1) Conditioned responding to S2 on subsequent tests could be the result of recurring successive activation of two independently learned temporal maps that remain independently stored in memory (i.e., S2–S1 plus S1–US). (2) Temporal integration at the moment of initial testing could result in the formation of a direct S2–US (or S2–response) temporal map. Integration was found to occur at test and to produce a new association that was independent of associations with the common element (S1). However, the associative status of S1 appeared to modulate whether or not the new association with S2 was US-specific (S2–US) or directly activated a fear response (S2–response).     

The Media and Criminologists: Interactions and Satisfaction

Traditionally, academic criminologists have addressed two audiences—other academics and students—while largely ignoring other segments of society. Frequently neglected is attention to educating the public. This paper uses a random sample of American Society of Criminology (ASC) members to measure the level of interaction with and attitudes toward criminologists working with the media. Findings suggest that most criminologists have participated in an isolated incidence of working with the media, tend to be generally satisfied with this experience, and perceive working with the media as a worthwhile endeavor for criminologists.     

Journal publications of Ph.D. graduates from American criminology and criminal justice programs

This article assesses the quality of 12 American doctoral programs by counting the number of publications of their Ph.D. graduates in a large number of criminology and criminal justice journals, and in 20 more “academic” journals. While half of the Ph.D. graduates had no publications, the 4 percent who were the most productive (the “stars”) accounted for one third of all journal articles. Publication rates up to graduation predicted publication rates after graduation. The University of Maryland, Michigan State University, the University of California at Irvine, Florida State University, and Sam Houston State University had the most productive Ph.D. graduates in academic journals. There was a significant correlation between the productivity of a program's Ph.D. graduates and the productivity of its faculty members. The academic publication rate was influenced most by prevalence (the percentage of Ph.D.s with at least one publication), rather than by the percentage of “stars” or the frequency of publications.     

REPORT ON FIVE CITIES

This article examines one university's policies regarding Native mascots and ethnic fraud through a Tribal Critical Race Theory analytic lens. Using the principle of interest convergence, we argue that institutions of higher education allow and even work actively towards a particular form or level of diversity, but they do not extend it far enough. Once racial remedies no longer hold value or benefit the institution itself, the status quo is maintained. Ultimately, the university has an interest in “celebrating” diversity and supporting superficial multiculturalism, but it does not have an interest in critical, social justice-oriented policies that challenge the status quo, the current racial order, or the institution's privilege and power.     

THE DEPARTMENT CHAIR AS SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: SHARED AUTHORITY IN THE COMMUNITY COLLEGE DEPARTMENT

The department chair position is vital to the effective administration of both the academic unit and the entire college. Inherent in the roles and tasks of the individual position is a responsibility for consensus development, which in turn requires the involvement of faculty in decision-making activities. This consensual development dictates that faculty who are specialists in their particular academic disciplines be involved in decisions ranging from admissions and grading to institutional policy formation and cross-disciplinary curricula development. The current study was conducted to examine the perceptions of department chairs in the involvement of faculty in departmental decision-making.