Cohort crowding and nonresident college enrollment

This study uses a fixed effects panel data framework to examine the effects of cohort crowding and other variables on nonresident enrollment at four-year public colleges and universities. The results suggest that larger cohorts of resident students crowd out nonresident students at flagship universities, but there is inconsistent evidence of crowd out at non-flagship schools. Additionally, larger cohorts of resident students result in increased nonresident tuition at flagship universities but not at non-flagship schools. When faced with larger cohorts of resident students, flagship universities lower the numbers of nonresident students enrolled and raise the price for nonresidents.     

Grading as a Reform Effort: Do Standards‐Based Grades Converge With Test Scores?

Standards‐based progress reports (SBPRs) require teachers to grade students using the performance levels reported by state tests and are an increasingly popular report card format. They may help to increase teacher familiarity with state standards, encourage teachers to exclude nonacademic factors from grades, and/or improve communication with parents. The current study examines the SBPR grade–state test score correspondence observed across 2 years in 125 third and fifth grade classrooms located in one school district to examine the degree of consistency between grades and state test results. It also examines the grading practices of a subset of 37 teachers to determine whether there is an association between teacher appraisal style and convergence rates. A moderate degree of grade–test score convergence was observed using three agreement estimates (coefficient kappa, tau‐b correlations, and classroom‐level mean differences between grades and test scores). In addition, only small amounts of grade–test score convergence were observed between teachers; a much greater proportion of variance lay within classrooms and subjects. Appraisal style correlated weakly with convergence rates, but was most strongly related to assigning students to the same performance level as the test. Therefore using recommended grading practices may improve the quality of SBPR grades to some extent.     

Is a go-getter better off?

In this article we first try to answer the question posed in the title in the context of a real life situation. We suggest sequential methods of selecting a member from a given set of individuals. We show that these methods indeed assign ‘equal chance’ of being selected to all individuals.     

Environmental Education as a Lived‐Body Practice? A Contemplative Pedagogy Perspective

Environmental education usually appeals to the students’ knowledge and rational understanding. Even though this is needed, there is a neglected aspect of learning ecologically fruitful action; that of the lived‐body. This paper introduces the lived‐body as an important site for learning ecological action. An argument is made for the need of a biophilia revolution, in which refined experience of the body and enhanced capabilities for sensing are seen as important ways of complementing the more common, knowledge‐based environmental education. Alienation from the physical environment is seen as one key element in producing environmental devastation. Consequently, human alienation from nature is seen as closely related to alienation from one's body. It is claimed that through overcoming the (Cartesian) dualist alienation of human consciousness from its lived body, we can decrease the alienation of human beings from their environment. Methods of contemplative pedagogy are introduced for addressing alienation. By getting in touch with the tangible lived‐body in yoga or mindfulness meditation we reconnect to the material world of nature. Contemplative pedagogy cultivates the body and its senses for learning intrinsic valuation and caring for the environment. Lived‐body experience is challenging to conceptualise; we use Maurice Merleau‐Ponty's concept of the flesh in our attempt to do so. Finally, this paper suggests some contemplative practices of the lived‐body for environmental education. Experiencing the flesh of oneself and the world as one and the same is an environmentally conducive experience that gives value and meaning to the flourishing of all life, human and non‐human.     

Analysis of publications of the pilot issue of the data collection of the All-Russia Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of the Russian Academy of Sciences “Industry of Nanosystems and Nanomaterials”

The pilot issue of the data collection of the All-Russian Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of the Russian Academy of Sciences “Industry of Nanosystems and Nanomaterials” gives an approximate view of the state of this field of science at the beginning of 2007. The topics of articles in the pilot issue are analyzed. The directions of development of nanotechnologies are shown. The basic types of nanomaterials, the methods of their production, and their properties and applications are given.     

The competitiveness of scientific research and measures to increase it

In this paper, the consideration of the problem of the competitiveness of scientific research as an independent scientific line in the context of the science of science, whose main methodological instruments could be the adapted economic concepts of competitiveness and clusters, as well as mathematical models of competitive interactions (including models described in the terms and equations of population dynamics) and the methods of scientometric analysis, is proposed. It is shown that solution of the problem of increasing the competitiveness of post-Soviet scientific research falls within the domains of information communication. In addition, the role of the international movement for public access to scientific knowledge in increasing the competitiveness of scientific research is considered.