Influence of student learning experience on academic performance: The mediator and moderator effects of self‐regulation and motivation

This study examined the mediator and moderator roles of self‐regulation and motivation constructs in the relationship between learning experience and academic success. Self‐reported measures of learning experience, self‐regulation and motivation were obtained from 384 undergraduate students from a university in Hong Kong. Structural equation modelling indicated that self‐regulation and motivation fully mediated the learning experience—academic performance relation. In addition, hierarchical regression analysis also showed that both self‐regulation and motivation had small moderating effects on the link between learning experience and academic performance. That is, the association between learning experience and cumulative GPA was stronger for students with lower levels of self‐regulation and motivation. The implications of fostering motivation and enhancing university learning experience are discussed.     

How Niche Magazines Survive and Thrive Through an Industry in Turmoil

In recent years, many general-interest magazine publishers have had problems maintaining stability. What can these publications learn from smaller, niche titles that have  remained successful through the same industry changes? This paper will examine three major strengths for niche magazines that general-interest magazine publishers lack: their reader devotion, their careful approaches to digitalization, and their use of paid digital content. These strengths are analyzed in three case studies from different sub-genres of niche publishing: a city magazine, a luxury product magazine, and a hobby magazine. This paper offers practical suggestions general-interest magazines can implement. Looking at the successful practices suggests the potential to address industry-wide problems and to potentially yield more stable magazine publishing environments.     

From Designing to Organizing New Social Futures: Multiliteracies Pedagogies for Today

Abstract

More than 20 years ago, literacy pedagogies informed by the emerging networked world defined by local diversity and global connectedness, new digital media and fast capitalism. Modern people now fully inhabit the world they described, but the contours of that world’s racial dynamics and growing inequality call for a refinement of pedagogies that embrace a more activist metaphor than that of design. Our pedagogies of multiliteracies must now embrace the ‘organizing of social futures’ in ways that apprentice young people to repertoires of collective action, in which literacy becomes more fully a means of supporting community efforts to promote and bring about more just futures.     

How do school resources and academic performance differ across Australia’s rural, regional and metropolitan communities?

This study uses data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) to gain a better understanding of how academic performance and resources vary across rural–urban school communities in Australia. While it is well known that schools in rural areas have difficulty recruiting and retaining teachers, the degree to which schools in larger sized communities across Australia also face this problem is less understood. Moreover, very little is known about the degree to which shortages of instructional materials and equipment are associated with rural–urban location. The analysis includes 353 schools across eight community types that range in size of <1,000 people in small country towns to more than a million people in large capital cities. School principals reported the degree to which instruction in their school is hindered by a shortage of resources, which include qualified teaching staff and instructional materials and equipment. The findings highlight the extent to which school resources vary across geographic location, as reported by school principals. Principals of schools in the centre of large cities were the least likely to report that shortages of teaching staff or instructional materials hinder learning, while principals in rural and remote communities were the most likely to report that such shortages hinder instruction. These differences closely mirror student PISA academic performance and school socioeconomic composition. PISA data indicates that schools located in small rural communities have the lowest socioeconomic profiles, the lowest academic performance and the largest shortages of teaching staff and instructional materials, while schools in central neighborhoods of large cities enjoy the highest socioeconomic profiles, the highest academic performance and the fewest shortages.