Self‐Efficacy of First‐Generation and Non‐First‐Generation College Students: The Relationship With Academic Performance and College Adjustment

The authors examined whether self‐efficacy mediated the relationship between generational status and 2 academic outcome indicators of 192 college students. A mediation effect was not found with either academic performance or college adjustment. However, high self‐efficacy at the beginning of the year predicted better college adjustment at the end of the 1st year. For college students in general, high self‐efficacy was related to better college adjustment. Recommendations for counselors are discussed.     

Skills‐Based Training and Counseling Self‐Efficacy

The authors studied the effectiveness of the skilled counselor training model (SCTM). Counseling students who completed the SCTM demonstrated greater gains in skills acquisition and counseling self‐efficacy than counseling students who did not receive the training. At pretest, the counseling students in both groups, doing self‐appraisals, rated their performance of counseling skills significantly higher than trained raters assessed the students' performance of counseling skills. At posttest, members of the control group continued to overestimate their skills levels when compared with the ratings given by the trained raters, whereas, in comparison, students who received SCTM training underestimated their performance.     

The sign of the new millennium. Organisational changes and job satisfaction at Spanish public universities

This article describes the ramifications that recent organisational changes in the Spanish higher education sector have had on levels of job satisfaction among teaching staff. The research gathered their opinions on recent changes affecting their teaching duties, using job satisfaction scales in different areas of their academic work. The results point to a large number who claim to have seen their job satisfaction diminish over the period in which the organisational changes have taken hold. This sense of loss of job satisfaction is positively and significantly related to growing standardisation and to the erosion of the principles of collegiality, but negatively to the initiatives for improving the coordination between teaching staff and the assessment of the quality of their work.     

Why is Marketing Education a Must for Engineers? A Manager's Viewpoint

Engineers are familiar with various techniques of design, manufacturing, production, distribution, etc. Education is primarily oriented towards learning product development and towards industrial processes. How can industry better achieve its goals? If engineers apply modern marketing techniques in their respective work environment, it can be foreseen that success will affect their organisations and their personal life! The marketing essentials are summarised with respect to a small company, that relies on R & D, production and servicing.     

Intellectual Styles and Academic Achievement among Senior Secondary School Students in Rural China

The present study empirically addresses two longstanding controversial issues in the field of intellectual styles. The first concerns the distinction (or similarity) between various style constructs. The second relates to whether or not intellectual styles make a difference to students' academic achievement. Specifically, the study investigated the relationship between Torrance's modes of thinking and Sternberg's thinking styles. It also examined the role of the two style constructs in achievement in Chinese, English, and mathematics. Three self‐report inventories were administered to 452 students from a senior secondary school in rural China. After students' age, gender, and self‐rated abilities were controlled for, thinking styles predicted modes of thinking. In general, conservative intellectual styles predicted better achievement across the three subjects among students in lower grade levels, whereas creative intellectual styles contributed to achievement in Chinese among students in higher grade levels. It is concluded that each of the two style constructs has a unique value in explaining individual differences in human performance. Furthermore, the study makes another call for cultivating creative intellectual styles among school students.     

Sequential Associations Between Caregiver Talk and Child Play in Autism Spectrum Disorder and Typical Development

This study examined sequential associations between child play and caregiver talk in 98 caregiver–child dyads (M_{mental age} = 14 months). Fifty dyads included a child with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Analyses revealed sequential associations between child play and caregiver follow‐in (FI) utterances (utterances related to the child's attentional focus) were stronger in the ASD as compared to the typically developing (TD) group. FI utterances were more likely to elicit functional play than caregiver‐focused utterances, and more so in the ASD group. Across groups, FI directives were more likely to elicit functional play than FI comments. These findings have important implications for research involving caregiver–child play as an early intervention context for children with ASD.     

Do Parents’ Causal Attributions Predict the Accuracy and Bias in their Children’s Self‐Concept of Maths Ability? A longitudinal study

The present study investigated the extent to which parents’ causal attributions predict the accuracy of, and bias in, their children’s self‐concept of maths ability. Participants were 207 children and their 182 mothers and 167 fathers, who were assessed during the children’s first and second primary school years. The results showed that the more parents thought that their children succeeded because of ability, the more accurate the children’s self‐concept of maths ability became. In contrast, the more the parents attributed their children’s success to effort, the less accurate and more optimistic the children’s self‐concept of ability became.