Student Engagement and Student Learning: Examining the Convergent and Discriminant Validity of the Revised National Survey of Student Engagement

The present study examined the relationships between student engagement, represented by two versions of the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) and self-reported gains in learning. The study drew on institutional-level data from participating institutions in 2011 and 2013. The objective of the research was to compare evidence of convergence and discrimination for the two versions of NSSE using canonical correlation analysis. Results indicated that both versions of NSSE provided clear evidence of convergence in that student engagement measures were significantly and positively related to perceived gains in learning. However, only the most recent version of NSSE provided strong evidence of discrimination (i.e., differential relationships between engagement measures and self-reported learning outcomes). Thus, the revised NSSE appears to offer substantial advantages for institutions interested in more nuanced understandings of the relationships between student engagement and perceived learning outcomes. Implications for educators, with goals of enhancing student learning, and for researchers, who often compare complex sets of data, are included.     

Against the current: A grounded theory study on the estrangement experiences of a select group of Filipino gay older persons

According to Healthy People (2011), in order to understand the health concerns of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT), the oppression and discrimination that they have faced must be scrutinized. Among the many issues they face, their estrangement experiences are one of the most understudied. However, little is known about how it is experienced by the gay elderly population, hence, this investigation. This grounded theory purports to describe the process by which estrangement is experienced among the Filipino gay older adults. Strauss and Corbin’s Grounded Theory (1990) design was utilized. A total of 10 gay older persons were purposively chosen to participate in semi-structured interviews. Field texts were subjected to thematic analysis involving open, axial, and selective coding. The study generated The Sailing Model of Estrangement. Remarkably, three phases relative to estrangement emerged, namely: sequestering, striving, and surviving. Primarily, the sequestering phase involves the gay persons’ need to express self, search for acceptance, and its subsequent reactions. The striving phase typifies the struggle in dealing with estrangement leading to either feelings of depression, remorse and shame or positivity, hopefulness, and motivation. Finally, in the surviving phase, gay persons may either feel contented and fulfilled or sad, lonely, and remorseful as they acquiesce aging with estrangement. Findings of the study offer an understanding of how Filipino gay older adults employ coping strategies in response to estrangement.     

Perspectives on peer-review: eight years of Aropä

Drawing on eight years of observation and correspondence from the Aropä project, we report on the issues important to academics who conduct on-line student peer-review activities, and the features they request to support their own instructional designs. The Aropä project is unusually broad, having so far supported over 100 instructors at 20 institutions across nine countries, almost one thousand activities, and more than 36,000 individual students. As the designers, developers, maintainers and advisors of an evolving and widely used tool, we use our unique position to report on the perspectives and priorities of instructors and students in this important and developing field.     

Mothers,fathers, and infants: the role of person familiarity and parental involvement in infants' perception of emotion expressions

The roles of person familiarity and parental involvement in 3.5-month-old infants' sensitivity to the dynamic emotion expressions of others were explored. In the home, parental facial/vocal expressions (happy, sad, angry) were videotaped, and measures of parent-infant involvement were obtained. In the laboratory, 32 infants alternately viewed their mother and father and an unfamiliar woman and man portraying expressions in an intermodal preference task. Infants looked differentially at mothers' expressions but not at those of fathers or unfamiliar adults. Examination of parent-child involvement patterns revealed significant relations with infants' sensitivity to expressions. Results suggest that person familiarity may facilitate infants' developing understanding of others' emotion expressions, and that individual differences in family dynamics may be relevant to infants' patterns of responding.     

Transformative Education

Universities aspire to offer students a transformative experience, but rarely spell out the nature of this transformation. In this essay, L. A. Paul and John Quiggin frame the successful university education as transformative in the philosophical sense. They explain the way that a successful college education can be understood as generating an individual conceptual revolution, and thus, as a transformative experience. Education can create epistemically transformative change through the process of developing critical thinking skills, leading to conceptual replacement and the discovery of new intellectual frameworks. This epistemic transformation, if deep enough, scales up into a personal transformation. After explicating the nature and structure of transformative education, Paul and Quiggin show how understanding transformation in terms of personal change and awareness of unawareness clarifies the debate over its value.     

Success in Community College: Do Institutions Differ?

Community colleges are complex organizations and assessing their performance, though important, is difficult. Compared to 4-year colleges and universities, community colleges serve a more diverse population and provide a wider variety of educational programs that include continuing education and technical training for adults, and diplomas, associates degrees, and transfer credits for recent high school graduates. Focusing solely on the latter programs of North Carolina’s community colleges, we measure the success of each college along two dimensions: attainment of an applied diploma or degree; or completion of the coursework required to transfer to a 4-year college or university. We address three questions. First, how much variation is there across the institutions in these measures of student success? Second, how do these measures of success differ across institutions after we adjust for the characteristics of the enrolled students? Third, how do our measures compare to the measures of success used by the North Carolina Community College System? Although we find variation along both dimensions of success, we also find that part of this variation is attributable to differences in the kinds of students who attend various colleges. Once we correct for such differences, we find that it is not possible to distinguish most of the system’s colleges from one another along either dimension. Top-performing institutions, however, can be distinguished from the most poorly performing ones. Finally, our adjusted rates of success show little correlation either to measurable aspects of the various colleges or to the metrics used by the state.     

Inclusive Learning: the Report of the Committee of Enquiry into the postschool education of those with learning difficulties and/or disabilities,in England, 1996

ABSTRACT

The Report, Inclusive Learning (1996), is the result of a three‐year enquiry into the educational needs of and provision for adults with disabilities and/or learning difficulties in England. It arose from the requirement of an Act of Parliament, in 1992, that the new national funding council for further education should ‘have regard’ for such students in all its work of funding, development and evaluation. The Committee commissioned some fundamental research into the nature and extent of provision, the actual and potential demand for further education and the current requirements of law, and also reviewed existing academic research (chiefly in English‐speaking countries). It took extensive evidence in many modes and, in particular, created a series of workshops in which the students and their advocates could speak for themselves. The outcome was the main Report and summary, together with six supplementary publications. The core of the Report is the notion of ‘inclusive learning’, which places the responsibility for providing appropriate education with the teachers, the managers and the system (ultimately, with society), rather than problematizing the student as one with a deficit. A good education system is not merely about offering access to what is available, but also the making of what needs to be available accessible: the moulding of opportunity. Thus the Report concentrates on a theory of learning and its educational consequences. It represents another step towards embracing students with learning difficulties and/or disabilities unequivocally within the general approach to learning appropriate for all students. This article summarizes the main lines of analysis and argument in the Report and its framework of recommendations to the Further Education Funding Council, teachers, managers, voluntary organizations and to the government.     

Graduate study and research

Speech Correction on the Contract Plan. By Ruth B. Manser. New York: Prentice‐Hall, Inc., 1935; pp. xix + 333.

Leadership in a Changing World. Ed. by M. David Hoffman and Ruth Wanger. New York: Harper and Bros., 1935 ; pp. xv + 418.

Your Telltale English. By Sophie C. Hadida. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1935 ; pp. 419. $2.00.

Propaganda; Its Psychology and Technique. By Leonard W. Doob. New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1935; pp. x + 424. $3.00.

The 1932 Campaign: An Analysis. By Roy V. Peel and Thomas C. Donnelly. New York: Farrar and Rinehart, 1935; pp. viii + 242. $1.50.

A B C of Reading. By Ezra Pound. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1934; pp. xii + 197.

Lotteries. Compiled by Helen M. Muller. New York: H. W. Wilson Co., 1935 ; pp. 128. $0.90.

Old Age Pensions. Compiled by Julia E. Johnsen. New York: H. W. Wilson Co., 1935 ; pp. 295. $0.90.

Socialized Medicine. A debate reprinted from the University Debaters’ Annual for 1933–1934. New York: H. W. Wilson Co., 1935 ; pp. 31: $.35.

Road To War: America 1914–1917. By Walter Millis. Boston and New York: Houghton Miffiin Company, 1935 ; pp. ix + 466. Index. $3.00.

Speech Therapy. By Emil Fröschels. Translated from the German by Joseph Noyes Haskell. Boston: The Expression Company, 1933 ; pp. 252.

Speech in Childhood: Its Development and Disorders. By George Seth and Douglas Guthrie. New York: Oxford University Press, 1935 ; pp. x + 224. $3.50.

A Study of Illiteracy in C.C.C. Camps. Washington: Bulletin 110068 of the United States Office of Education, Department of the Interior, 1935.

Propaganda and Promotional Activities. An Annotated Bibliography. By H. D. Lasswell, R. D. Casey, and B. L. Smith. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1935 ; pp. 450.

World Politics and Personal Insecurity. By H. D. Lasswell. New York: Whittlesey House, 1935 ; pp. 307.

Fox. By Christopher Hobhouse. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1935; pp. 320. $3.50.

Architecture for the New Theatre. Edited by Edith J. R. Isaacs. Published for the National Theatre Conference. New York: Theatre Arts, Inc., 1935 ; pp. 125. $2.50.

Directing for the Amateur Stage. By Leslie Crump. New York: Dodd, Mead &; Co., 1935; pp. xi + 235. $2.50.

Freedom of the Press. By George Seldes. Indianapolis: The Bobbs‐ Merrill Co., 1935 ; pp. 380. $2.75.

Psychology of Acting. By Lorenz Kjerbühl‐Petersen, translated by Sarah T. Barrows. Boston: Expression Company, 1935 ; pp. 255. $3.50.

Congress or the Supreme Court. Edited by Egbert Ray Nichols. New York: Noble &; Noble, Inc., 1935; pp. 476. $2.00.

Aphasia: A Clinical and Psychological Study. By Theodore Weisenburg and Katherine McBride. New York: The Commonwealth Fund, 1935 ; pp. 634. $5.00.

Current English. By Arthur G. Kennedy. Boston: Ginn &; Co., 1935; pp. xiii + 737. $3.50.

The Development of Modern English. By Stuart Robertson. New York: Prentice‐Hall, Inc., 1934; pp. vii + 559. $2.50.

The Politician: His Habits, Outcries, and Protective Coloring. By James Harold Wallis. New York: The Frederick A. Stokes Co., 1935; pp. x + 333. $3.00.

Play Production. By M. V. C. Jeffreys and R. W. Stopford. London: Methuen &; Co., New York: E. P. Dutton &; Co., 1933; pp. xviii + 199. $2.50.

The Genesis and Growth of English. By J. S. Armour. New York: Oxford University Press, 1935; pp. xi + 182. $1.25.

The Neutrality Policy of the United States. Compiled by Julia E. Johnsen. The Reference Shelf, vol. X, no. 7. New York: The H. W. Wilson Company, 1936; pp. 267. $0.90.

How to Conduct Group Discussion. By A. F. Wileden and H. L. Ewbank. Madison: Extension Service of the College of Agriculture, University of Wisconsin, 1935; pp. 64.

Who Should Pay the Doctor Bills. By H. L. Ewbank and Martin P. Anderson. Madison: Extension Service of the College of Agriculture, University of Wisconsin, 1936; pp. 38.

Effective Speech: First Course. By Lousene Rousseau and Mary E. Cramer. New York: Harper &; Bros., 1936; pp. xii + 300. $1.20.

The Science and Art of Speech. By Charles Robert Walsh. New York: Benziger Bros., 1935; pp. xvii + 193. $2.60.

Mediaeval Artes Praedicandi: A Supplementary Hand‐List. By Harry Caplan. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1936; pp. 36.

Masks and Marionettes. By Joseph Spencer Kennard. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1935; pp. ix + 129. $3.50.

The Public Speaker's Scrapbook. By William G. Hoffman. New York: Whittlesey House, 1935; pp. xi + 269. $2.50.

For Stutterers. By Smiley Blanton, M.D., and Margaret Gray Blanton. New York: D. Appleton‐Century Co., 1936; pp. xi + 191. $2.00.

Basic Speech and Voice Science. By L. S. Judson and A. T. Weaver. Madison: The College Typing Company, 1933; pp. iv + 218. $4.25.

Anecdotal History of the Science of Sound, to the Beginning of the 20th Century. By Dayton C. Miller. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1935 ; pp. xi + 114. $2.50.

Lucius Q. C. Lainar. By Wirt Armistead Cate. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1935 ; pp. xiii + 594. $5.00.

Disorders of Speech and Voice, 4th ed. By Robert West. Madison: College Typing Co., 1935; pp. 144. $2.75.

Bibliography of Disorders of Speech and Voice. By Robert West. Madison: College Typing Co., 1934; pp. 21. $0.50.

Signals and Speech in Electrical Communication. By John Mills. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1934; pp. 281. $2.75.

Something About Words. By Ernest Weekley. New York: E. P. Dutton and Co., 1936; pp. 233. $1.75.

A History of the Philadelphia Theatre 1835–1855. By Arthur. Herman Wilson. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1935 ; pp. 724. $6.00.

How to Develop Your Speaking Voice, By E. H. Baxter Rinquest. Denver: Frank J. Wolf Publishing House, 1935; pp. 228.

An Experience Curriculum in English. A Report of a Commission of the National Council of Teachers of English. W. Wilbur Hatfield, Chairman. New York: D. Appleton‐Century Company, Inc., 1935; pp. x + 323. $1.50. (To members of the N.C.T.E. $1.00.)