IS STUDENT-RIGHT-TO-KNOW ALL YOU SHOULD KNOW? An Analysis of Community College Graduation Rates

Over the last decade, policymakers, educators, and researchers have increasingly sought to understand community college policies and practices that promote students’ success. This effort has been partly driven by an increased emphasis on outcome accountability, but it has also promoted a productive discussion about improving institutional performance. The research reported here has two related goals. One goal is to work towards strengthening the ability to assess and compare institutional performance. We thus have developed a model that can be used to adjust simple graduation rates for institutional characteristics, such as student composition, college resources, size, and location, all of which might influence those rates. Our long-term goal is to understand how to improve student outcomes, so the paper also uses the model to measure the effect of those institutional characteristics on graduation rates. We use data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) surveys, applying a weighted least-squares procedure for grouped data to estimate an institutional-completion rates model. This analysis confirms several hypotheses about institutional determinants of graduation rates at community colleges. Our results indicate a consistent negative relationship between enrollment size and completion. Additionally, colleges with high shares of minority students, part-time students, and women have lower graduation rates. A final significant finding among institutional characteristics is that greater instructional expenditures are related to a greater likelihood of graduation. The method developed here can be used to better assess the performance of community colleges.     

Formative research on an early stage of the systemic change process in a small school district

This study utilised a qualitative research methodology known as formative research to improve the process guidelines that are described in the Guidance System for Transforming Education (GSTE). This study took place in a small (5447 students), partly urban and partly rural school district in Indiana. The researchers, also serving as change facilitators, investigated an early stage of the systemic change process as outlined in the GSTE. Specifically, the research focused on field‐testing and improving the process for assessing the district's readiness for change. It was found that this process could have been improved if the facilitators had had more guidance to help them develop the interview protocols.     

Adult Agendas in Publishing South African Folktales for Children

Translations of indigenous folktales form a large proportion of South African children's books. The reasons why they were published can be compared with the situation in Canada and Australia, where far fewer folktales were published until the 1970s. At first those who published them were influenced by Social Darwinism, and later they played a role in promoting the ideology of apartheid, but they were mainly the product of white paternalism. In South Africa and Australia they rivalled and outlasted the importation of whimsical European fairy tale elements. Today they are valued for sharing with all South African children indigenous culture, which has vanished or is disappearing in urban society.     

Morphological awareness and reading in second and fifth grade: evidence from Hebrew

Research suggests that morphological awareness facilitates word decoding, improves lexical knowledge, and helps reading comprehension (Carlisle, 2010; Nagy et al., 2014; Verhoeven & Perfetti, 2011). The present study examined the relationship among morphological awareness, word recognition and reading comprehension in 153 second- and fifth-grade Hebrew speakers at an elementary school in Israel. Students were given morphological awareness tests and tests for word recognition and reading comprehension. Three types of morphological awareness were analyzed: inflection, derivation and construct formation. Overall, students with low morphological awareness in derivation and construct formation showed relatively poor achievement in word recognition and comprehension. All three types were found to correlate with reading comprehension in readers with high morphological awareness. These readers also exhibited good reading skills. The results are discussed with regard to the special characteristics of Hebrew morphology and reading process, which aid morphological decomposition.     

Reasons for Utilizing Mental Health Services as Predictors of College Students’ Alcohol Risk

The authors examined college student drinkers’ (n = 153) reasons for seeking counseling services and risk for alcohol problems. Students seeking help for impulse‐ or anger‐related issues and depression were at heightened risk for alcohol problems. Only 10% of students sought alcohol‐related help despite high rates of hazardous alcohol use (80%) and dependence (39%). Targeted screening and intervention in college counseling centers may enable providers to effectively identify and treat students in need of alcohol treatment.     

Sociodemographic and Environmental Correlates of Racial Socialization by Black Parents

The present study focused on the content and practice of racial socialization by black parents. Sociodemographic correlates of patterns of racial socialization were examined using data from a national probability sample of 2,107 respondents (National Study of Black Americans). Multivariate analysis revealed that gender, age, marital status, region, and racial composition of neighborhood predicted whether or not black parents imparted racial socialization messages to their children. Black parents envision racial socialization as involving several components, including messages regarding their experience as minority group members, themes emphasizing individual character and goals, and information related to black cultural heritage. The findings highlighted the critical importance of sociodemographic and environmental influences on the socialization process. Implications for future research on racial socialization are discussed.     

How a Dummy Replaces a Student's Test and Gets an F (Or,How Regression Substitutes for t tests and ANOVA)

Using dummy variables, this note offers a convenient illustration to demonstrate that regression can replace both the one‐factor analysis of variance and the two‐population t test with independent random samples. The exercise also helps to develop students’ intuition regarding regression coefficients.     

Interface between Culture and Disability in the Tanzanian Context: Part I

Schooling for children and young people with disabilities in Tanzania was introduced in 1950. Yet, despite the persistently high annual population growth rate of over 3% and not‐so‐developed health services, after 30 years the few recognised school places available to them are not being filled. Interviews with elderly people representing different educational zones and observation carried out in two schools showed that the communities where the special schools and units are located were not involved in the establishment and running of the educational centres. The interviews with elderly people and proverbs surveyed from local literature showed that the characteristics of major disabilities, except mild to moderate intellectual disability, were clearly known and the general attitudes towards their disabled children were positive. In this article it is argued that the success of special education and any other form of rehabilitation depends on a thorough assessment of the community's folk belief system, customs and values, capitalising on progressive elements within the culture and on instilling a sense of ownership through the involvement of parents, people with disabilities and the community at large in decision‐making and actual intervention activities.