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.     

Imagining the New Order Nation: Materiality and Hyperreality in Indonesia

This paper examines the tension between the materiality of information and communications technologies and the hyperreality which they are thought to produce. The setting for our analysis is Indonesia, where the most recent innovations in communications technologies co-exist alongside ancient – but still functional – ‘predecessor’ devices. Building upon Benedict Anderson's work on late-colonial Indonesia and Chandra Mukerji's work on seventeenth-century French formal gardens, we examine how the national imaginaries specific to Suharto's New Order state are embedded in the materiality of the present.     

Development and Evaluation of Turkish Language Versions of three Positive Psychology Assessments

This study reports the development and evaluation of a Turkish-language version of three positive psychology assessments for use in clinical, education and research settings with Turkish-speaking individuals. A multistage translation of the Brief Resilience Scale (BRS; Smith et al. in International Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 15, 194–200, 2008), the General Mattering Scale (GMS; Marcus 1991) and the Short Grit Scale (GS; Duckworth & Quinn in Journal of Personality Assessment, 91, 166–174. doi:10.1080/00223890802634290, 2009) is detailed, as well as the procedure used to evaluate the internal structure of the translated assessments. The results yielded from data of 268 participants indicated factor structures ranging from acceptable to robust model fit for the BRS, GMS, and GS. Implications for counseling practice and future research are discussed.     

Learning difficulties in high school physics: Development of a remedial teaching method and assessment of its impact on achievement

Many high school students experience serious learning difficulties in physics. This issue was examined and dealt with, within the context of an introductory physics course in Israeli high schools. Following a detailed task analysis, the cognitive entry requirements for this course were identified, and students tested for them. Secondly, specific difficulties students encountered during the study of the course, and prevailing misconceptions held by many of them, were identified. Based on all the above information, a remedial teaching method was developed. It consisted of supplying students with immediate and frequent feedback, to reinforce their understanding, correct misunderstandings, and fill in gaps in necessary background skills, while teachers could continuously monitor the progress of each individual student. The whole process took place within the natural classroom setting, without additional staff or time requirements. The method was implemented in a large number of schools, and its impact was assessed using an experimental versus control analysis of covariance design. Achievements in the experimental group were significantly higher. The statistical analysis used students' background as the covariate. Of the 47% of the variance, which the model accounted for, 24% were explained by the covariate (background), 16% were the effect of the treatment, and both were highly significant. An additional 7% were the teachers' effect (nested within treatments), but this effect did not reach statistical significance.     

Latinx students’ experiences with college access and preparation at college preparatory charter schools

Charter schools that target underserved communities, including Latinxs, have proliferated in the U.S., claiming a unique, more autonomous and successful alternative to traditional public schools, often with a promise of increased postsecondary access and preparation. However, there is conflicting evidence regarding their effectiveness on academic outcomes, prompting additional research on charter schools. This study examined the college access and preparation experiences of 14 Latinxs attending college preparatory charter schools within one school system in Texas. Findings highlight how schools assisted students in preparing for college, but challenges in accessing college knowledge and assistance still existed, particularly for undocumented students.     

Social Pragmatics: Preschoolers Rely on Commonsense Psychology to Resolve Referential Underspecification

Four experiments show that 4- and 5-year-olds (total N = 112) can identify the referent of underdetermined utterances through their Naïve Utility Calculus—an intuitive theory of people’s behavior structured around an assumption that agents maximize utilities. In Experiments 1–2, a puppet asked for help without specifying to whom she was talking (“Can you help me?”). In Experiments 3–4, a puppet asked the child to pass an object without specifying what she wanted (“Can you pass me that one?”). Children’s responses suggest that they considered cost trade-offs between the members in the interaction. These findings add to a body of work showing that reference resolution is informed by commonsense psychology from early in childhood.