Advising time inventory: Consequences of the general college individualized baccalaureate degree program on faculty advising,activities, and academic load

Faculty of the General College are assigned advising responsibilities in addition to their teaching load. Full-time members, for example, advise 35–40 students per year. When the College initiated an individualized baccalaureate degree program in 1971, little provision was made for consequent changes on the advising function and the academic load. As a result, advisers, faced with the complex and time-consuming matters that adhere to individualized learning programs, felt mounting pressure. Large numbers of evening school students were attracted to the program and sought advice and, upon admission, expected to be assigned a faculty adviser. The College made no formal acknowledgment of the addition of the non-day school advisees to advisers' loads. Strained by the overburden, faculty participated in this study to identify how much real time they spend in advising, with whom, and on what kinds of activities. Evidence from this study was used to support their request for recognition by the College of the changed nature and full scope of their advising work.The author wishes to acknowledge Drs. Paul J. Feltovich and Thomas Brothen for their help with the researching of this paper.     

The Japanese University in Crisis

Japanese education has been a focus of comparative studies for the past 20 years. Many scholars have attributed the economic success of this industrialized society to a highly literate and well-educated population. Recent studies, however, have tended to be more critical of, in particular, Japanese higher education (HE). Indeed, most universities in Japan are acutely aware of the need for change and a considerable effort at institutional reform is sweeping the nation. Unfortunately most of the constructive criticism of Japanese HE has not yet been published in English. One of the most vocal of the reformists, Professor Ikuo Amano, has published widely on various aspects of HE in Japan. The following paper is a translation of a chapter in his book Challenges to Japanese Universities. This translation is prefaced by both a synopsis of this book as well as a brief introduction to Amano and his work.     

Parent academic involvement as related to school behavior, achievement, and aspirations: demographic variations across adolescence

A longitudinal model of parent academic involvement, behavioral problems, achievement, and aspirations was examined for 463 adolescents, followed from 7th (approximately 12 years old) through 11th (approximately 16 years old) grades. Parent academic involvement in 7th grade was negatively related to 8th-grade behavioral problems and positively related to 11th-grade aspirations. There were variations across parental education levels and ethnicity: Among the higher parental education group, parent academic involvement was related to fewer behavioral problems, which were related to achievement and then aspirations. For the lower parental education group, parent academic involvement was related to aspirations but not to behavior or achievement. Parent academic involvement was positively related to achievement for African Americans but not for European Americans. Parent academic involvement may be interpreted differently and serve different purposes across sociodemographic backgrounds.     

Standard-Setting Guidelines

Do we need guidelines for standard-setting studies? What should the guidelines address? What additional research on standard-setting is needed?     

A VBA‐based Simulation for Teaching Simple Linear Regression

In spite of the name, simple linear regression presents a number of conceptual difficulties, particularly for introductory students. This article describes a simulation tool that provides a hands‐on method for illuminating the relationship between parameters and sample statistics.     

Sustaining education for sustainability in turbulent times

A study of two schools in northern Australia demonstrated the impact on Education for Sustainability (EfS) initiatives of a disruptive policy environment set in motion by neoliberal reforms focused on standards, accountability, and international competitiveness. In one of the schools, a culture characterized by trust and an emphasis on cultivating teacher and student strengths and interests contributed to the resilience of these initiatives in the face of outside pressures. In the other, administrators preoccupied with the need to implement state mandates with fidelity failed to nurture and develop a collection of remarkable EfS projects and activities.     

Assessing Metacognitive Awareness

We constructed a 52-item inventory to measure adults′ metacognitive awareness. Items were classified into eight subcomponents subsumed under two broader categories, knowledge of cognition and regulation of cognition. Two experiments supported the two-factor model. Factors were reliable (i.e., α = .90) and inter-correlated (r = .54). Experiment 2 reported the knowledge of cognition factor was related to pre-test judgments of monitoring ability and performance on a reading comprehension test, but was unrelated to monitoring accuracy. Implications for educational assessment and future research were discussed.     

Initial evidence on the long-term impacts of work colleges

With the purpose of gaining a better understanding of the impacts that attending a work college may have on students while in college and up to 25 years later, this study estimated the effects of graduating from a group of work colleges on alumni educational and employment outcomes. Based on an overall sample of 7083 alumni from 5 work colleges, 20 private liberal arts colleges, and 5 public regional universities, a series of regression equations tested for differences across a range of college and employment related outcomes. With respect to a variety of facets of undergraduate educational outcomes, results indicate that attending a work college, relative to other types of institutions, has significant long-term effects. With respect to socioeconomic outcomes, results indicate that work colleges provide the greatest benefit to students from families with relatively low parental incomes. This research was supported by grants from The Mellon and Spencer Foundations.