Perceptions of Black Student Athletes About Academic Mentorship at a Predominantly White Institution in Higher Education

The purpose of this study was to investigate and describe the mentorship experiences of Black student athletes attending undergraduate programs at a Predominantly White Institution in Higher Education (PWI-HE). The research site for this study was a co-educational public research institution (PWI-HE) with an approximate enrollment of 45,000 students. A total of six Black student athletes (five African American and one Jamaican) agreed to participate in this study. Four major interrelated and complex themes emerged from the data analyses. These themes were: (a) mentoring study habits and routines, (b) mentoring academic schedule and time management, (c) personal development within an isolated environment, and (d) family members’ support and encouragements. To better support Black student athletes at PWI-HEs, athletic department administrators, coaches, faculty, and all students should be encouraged to respect, value, and embrace the racial identities, origins, languages, and cultures of the student athletes that are being mentored.     

A Comparison of Three Variations on a Standard-Setting Method

The purpose of this study was to determine whether two variations on the typical Angoff group standard-setting process would produce sufficiently consistent results to recommend their use. Judgments obtained from a group of experts during a meeting were compared with judgments gathered from the same group before and after the meeting. The results indicate that differences between passing scores obtained with the three variations are relatively small, but those gathered before the meeting were less consistent than ratings gathered during and after the meeting. These results imply that judgments gathered after an initial traditional group-process session can provide an efficient alternative mechanism for setting cutting scores using the Angoff method.
This research was supported by The American Board of Internal Medicine, but does not necessarily reflect its opinions or policies.     

Obtaining more out of less text in CBI: Effects of varied text density levels as a function of learner characteristics and control strategy

Learning from expository text in computer-based instruction (CBI) was examined as a function of text density level (high, low, or learner-controlled) and learner characteristics in achievement, attitudes, and reading ability. Low-density text was found to be as effective for learning as high-density text, but was more popular among students and also reduced completion time. The highest achievement was obtained in the learner-control condition, with low-ability readers showing a greater tendency to select high-density text than did high-ability readers. Reading ability was also positively related to achievement in learning from high-density computer text and to preferences for learning from CBI relative to print. Based on the resulte, use of low-density text is suggested as a standard feature or learner-control option for CBI lessons.     

The Power in Pleasure: Practical Implementation of Pleasure in Sex Education Classrooms

Pleasure is an important aspect of healthy sexual development. Moreover, public health researchers and feminist scholars suggest that pleasure-inclusive sex education is effective for reducing pregnancy and rates of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections and may create a more inclusive classroom environment for underserved individuals. Although scholars have called for the integration of pleasure into sexual health education, these theoretical suggestions have rarely translated into classroom practices. Educators often face myriad challenges in including positive messages about pleasure in sex education curricula. Resources are needed to make the inclusion of pleasure easier for educators. This article helps address this gap in two ways. The first part offers a new, holistic definition of pleasure, exposes deficits in current classroom practices, and explores how including pleasure may address many axes of inequality and enhance classroom experiences for diverse adolescents. The second part applies this understanding of pleasure to offer guidance for performing a curriculum analysis of pleasure deficits and then provides clear recommendations for how educators can fill those deficits by incorporating pleasure into their existing curricula. The analyses and resources presented here will, first, help educators better address the sexual health needs of students and, second, provide feminist academics with a new definition and theoretical approach to pleasure.     

Peter novick and the “Objectivity Question” in history

Author's note: Like most of the historians I have encountered in my lifetime, I have always found what happened in the past more interesting than those who write about it. I therefore rarely spend time reading books about historians. But when I learned that Peter Novick had agreed to participate in the panel, I decided I should look at his book,That Noble Dream: The “Objectivity Question” and the American Historical Profession,¹ which is about historians, as opposed to about history as most understand that word. Even though Novick reneged on that commitment by withdrawing from the panel shortly before it was to take place, what I found in his book struck me as sufficiently disturbing to merit extended remarks. What follows here is based on those portions of my talk that bore on Novick's book.     

Legitimacy,stratification, and internationalization in global higher education: the case of the International Association of Universities

Tertiary Education and Management - The International Association of Universities (IAU) is the only inclusive global university association, its membership barriers are low, yet few universities...     

Local Dependence in an Operational CAT: Diagnosis and Implications

The accuracy of CAT scores can be negatively affected by local dependence if the CAT utilizes parameters that are misspecified due to the presence of local dependence and/or fails to control for local dependence in responses during the administration stage. This article evaluates the existence and effect of local dependence in a test of Mathematics Knowledge. Diagnostic tools were first used to evaluate the existence of local dependence in items that were calibrated under a 3PL model. A simulation study was then used to evaluate the effect of local dependence on the precision of examinee CAT scores when the 3PL model was used for selection and scoring. The diagnostic evaluation showed strong evidence for local dependence. The simulation suggested that local dependence in parameters had a minimal effect on CAT score precision, while local dependence in responses had a substantial effect on score precision, depending on the degree of local dependence present.     

Psychology,market pressures,and pricing decisions in higher education: the case of the US private sector

Higher Education - We examine listed tuition and institutional aid practices within the US private sector, a sector where market pressures are relatively strong and consequently influence...