Examining the Impact of Interdisciplinary Programs on Student Learning

We investigated how learning outcomes of students majoring in interdisciplinary fields differ from those of students in discipline-based majors. We found that students in interdisciplinary majors report less change in Critical Thinking and Need For Cognition than their peers in disciplinary majors, but no difference in change in Positive Attitude Toward Literacy. Students’ gains in Critical Thinking and Need For Cognition do not vary by the characteristics of the interdisciplinary major, but some program characteristics influence modest changes in Positive Attitudes Toward Literacy. Future research should address selection effects, develop measures of interdisciplinary learning, and further explore curricular and instructional patterns in interdisciplinary programs.     

Analysis of macroethics teaching practices and perceptions in engineering: a cultural comparison

ABSTRACT

Students must be taught to understand the ethical issues associated with engineering and technology, which includes microethics and macroethics. This research examined the influence of cultural environment by comparing ethics-related education outcomes between educators in (1) the United States, (2) non-US Anglo, and (3) Western European countries who teach engineering students. In an increasingly globalised world where companies and projects draw from talent across countries, it is important to understand how different cultures educate future engineers about their ethical responsibilities. Survey results revealed that a majority of educators in all three groups viewed undergraduate and postgraduate education on ethics as insufficient. A higher percentage of non-US Anglo and Western European educators taught sustainability and environmental issues in their courses compared to US respondents. US educators taught codes of ethics, ethics in design, and safety more than those in Western Europe. Open-ended responses illuminated challenges and opportunities to improve ethics education.     

Programmed achievement using a within-class control

College students operated under different contingencies in the same classroom. The Programmed Achievement (PA) condition required students to evidence criterion performance (100% mastery) on 12 Chapter quizzes. Failure to evidence mastery performance on any of the quizzes resulted in the loss of a letter grade off the final course grade. The control condition involved a more traditional college classroom structure where students took chapter quizzes with no requirement to evidence mastery. A third group of low achievement students, identified at midterm, operated under control conditions the first half of the semester and were subsequently shifted to the PA contingency the second half of the semester. The results revealed only a slight superiority for PA students over controls and both PA and Control students demonstrated significantly better performance when compared to that of low achievement students prior to midterm. However, following the PA shift these subjects evidenced performance equivalent to that of the other two groups. Procedural and theoretical implications of these data were discussed.     

Discrepant stakeholder perspectives on graduate employability strategies

A literature review identified 12 strategies that have been empirically linked to improvements in graduate employability. A survey methodology was used to investigate self-reported use and/or perspectives on these strategies among four stakeholder groups. The following questions were asked: to students – What strategies are you using to improve your graduate employability; to graduates – What strategies did you use to improve your employability?; to higher education career development professionals and educators – Which of the following employability strategies do you provide for students?; and to employers – Which of the following strategies undertaken by students does your organisation value when recruiting graduates? Across the four stakeholder groups, 705 responses were received and analysed. The key findings were discrepancies between the strategies reported in the literature and those indicated in the surveys, as well as discrepancies between stakeholder groups in regard to which strategies were indicated.     

From microscope to mirror: doctoral students’ evolving positionalities through engagement with culturally sensitive research

This study examines the experiences of doctoral students in a qualitative research course that centers culture throughout the research process. Data sources include one-on-one interviews, written documentation of course assignments, research team meetings, and doctoral students’ conference proposals and publications examining civic learning and action and notions of citizenship of second- and 1.5-generation African immigrants in New York City. Using Tillman’s framework for culturally sensitive research (CSR), we draw attention to the ways doctoral students as emerging scholars come to understand and enact their positionalities in research, especially in relation to data analysis, interpretation, and representation. This study expands notions of CSR to include a focus on research with African immigrants and strengthens possibilities for doctoral preparation in education that focuses on culture, race, and immigrant populations.     

Ethnic Socialization in Neighborhood Contexts: Implications for Ethnic Attitude and Identity Development Among Mexican‐Origin Adolescents

Neighborhood Latino ethnic concentration, above and beyond or in combination with mothers' and fathers' ethnic socialization, may have beneficial implications for minority adolescents' ethnic attitude and identity development. These hypotheses, along with two competing hypotheses, were tested prospectively (from  = 12.79–15.83 years) in a sample of 733 Mexican‐origin adolescents. Neighborhood ethnic concentration had beneficial implications for ethnic identity processes (i.e., ethnic exploration and perceived peer discrimination) but not for ethnic attitudes. For Mexico‐born adolescents, high maternal ethnic socialization compensated for living in neighborhoods low on ethnic concentration. Findings are discussed vis‐à‐vis the ways in which they address major gaps in the neighborhood effects literature and the ethnic and racial identity development literature.     

Imagining Democratic Futures for Public Universities: Educational Leadership Against Fatalism's Temptations

At current rates, almost all U.S. public universities could reach a point of zero state subsidy within the next fifty years. What is a public university without public funding? In this essay, Kathleen Knight Abowitz considers the future of public universities, drawing upon the analysis provided in John Dewey's Democracy and Education. Knight Abowitz conducts an initial institutional analysis through two broad prisms: that of the political landscape that authorizes universities as public institutions, and that of the present political–economic context of public education in general and public universities in particular. Dewey's conception of democratic education is then explored; his arguments regarding aims, experience, thinking, and social intelligence provide important tools for imagining the democratic futures of public universities today.     

Relations Among Parenting,Culture, and Prosocial Behaviors in U.S. Mexican Youth: An Integrative Socialization Approach

We examined the longitudinal relations among parental socialization practices—including acceptance or harsh parenting and ethnic socialization—ethnic identity, familism, and prosocial behaviors in a sample of U.S. Mexican youth. Participants included 462 U.S. Mexican adolescents (M_age at Wave 1 = 10.4 years old; 48.1% female), their mothers, and fathers at the 5th, 7th, 10th, and 12th grades. Results showed that maternal and paternal ethnic socialization predicted several forms of prosocial behaviors via ethnic identity and familism. Fathers’, but not mothers’, harsh parenting and acceptance had direct links to specific forms of prosocial behaviors. This study suggests the need for culturally informed theories that examine the reciprocal relations between two distinct domains of cultural socialization.