Gifted students with learning disabilities: who are they?

More than 20 years ago, psychologists first described gifted students with learning disabilities (LD). In the past decade, several sets of identification criteria have been proposed for this population. Many of the suggested assessment practices are unsupported by research in psychoeducational assessment, and some have been directly contradicted by recent research. We argue that an uncritical acceptance of the concept of concomitant giftedness and LD has led to unsound identification procedures and to interventions that are not targeted properly. Specific recommendations for future research and implications for current clinical practice are discussed.     

College Women Mentoring Adolescent Girls: The Relationship between Mentor Peer Support and Mentee Outcomes

In this study, we examined the effectiveness of peer support for college women mentors who engaged in one-to-one and group mentoring with at-risk adolescent girls. Using data from 162 mentoring pairs, results suggested that mentor support positively predicted mentees’ self-reported improvement after a year of mentoring. An examination of mentees’ self-esteem outcomes revealed that mentor peer support was associated with higher outcomes only for those mentees who had higher pre-program scores; for those with below average pre-scores, mentor support was associated with lower self-esteem. Taken together, these results indicate that mentor support may serve as an important function beyond ongoing training, though its effectiveness may vary based on mentee characteristics. Implications are discussed.     

Dietary Fat Intake and Exercise Among Two- and Four-Year College Students: Differences in Behavior and Psychosocial Factors

Given the demographic differences among two-year colleges and four-year universities and the relatively limited access to health education and campus-based health resources, this study compares the frequency of limiting dietary fat intake and exercising among two- and four-year college students. A total of 2,265 undergraduate students aged 18–25 at a two-year college and a four-year university completed a 108-item online survey in October 2008. We found that two-year college students had less confidence, motivation, and intention to engage in healthy behaviors and reported fewer close friends who exercise regularly but more friends who eat high-fat foods. After controlling for age, gender, ethnicity, and parental education, two-year (versus four-year) college students less frequently limited dietary fat (F(2,2227) = 21.64, p < .001) and less frequently exercised ≥ 20 minutes a day (F(5,2232) = 14.21, p < .001). Thus, research should focus on developing interventions targeting the different psychosocial factors that influence nutrition and exercise among two-year college students.     

Doing it the Community College Way: Community College-Specific Programming

ABSTRACT

Community colleges are often boxed into university models despite the unique nature of their institutional missions and student populations. We believe community colleges need to develop their own models, rooted in their distinctive missions, to encourage student success. We illustrate this through our experience with a short-term research assistantship program. The program created a brief, but important, way to enhance the student–professor relationship and engage students in applied research practices. It also provided a resource to assist community college faculty in conducting their own, original research. We hope others will not only develop similar programs, but perhaps more importantly, that this article will spur bottom-up, creative thinking to engage time-constrained, community college students in meaningful ways.     

Who Places into Developmental Education and Why

Having garnered national attention, high failure rates in developmental education present a significant barrier to state and national policymakers’ goals of increasing the percentage of adults who earn a college credential. However, a majority of the research fails to consider why students place into developmental education. This piece examines a sample of recent high school graduates in Texas who placed into developmental education with the goal of gaining a more nuanced understanding of why these students required remediation. We find that rather than simply blaming the students for their failure to learn basic skills, there are concrete and actionable steps that policymakers and practitioners can take to help students avoid remediation, important actions that would increase students’ chances of earning a postsecondary credential.     

An Empirical Inquiry on Knowledge Sharing Among Academicians in Higher Learning Institutions

Universities are expected to be places where knowledge is shared freely among academicians. However, the reality shows that knowledge sharing is barely present within universities these days. As Malaysia shifts towards building a knowledge-based society, academic institutions, particularly the public universities, now face ever-growing faculty demands for sharing quality resources and expertise. As a result, knowledge sharing in academia has become a rising concern. The purpose of this study, then, is to uncover the factors that propel knowledge sharing among academicians in higher learning institutions of Malaysia. Using the Theory of Reasoned Action as the basis for this study’s research framework, data was gathered from 447 academicians in 10 public universities scattered throughout the country. Findings from the Partial Least Squares analysis revealed that extrinsic motivation, reciprocal relationships, sense of self-worth and subjective norm are vital determinants of an academician’s attitude towards knowledge sharing. In turn, this attitude that is formed will largely determine whether the academician engages in knowledge sharing behaviors or not. Besides having a positive effect on attitude, sense of self-worth also exhibited a positive impact on the subjective norm to share knowledge. Consequently, this subjective norm will have an impact upon knowledge sharing behavior. In addition, perceived behavioral control and organizational climate were discovered to have a direct influence on knowledge sharing behaviors. Implications, limitations as well as suggestions for future research are accordingly discussed in this paper.