The effect of incentives and other instructor-driven strategies to increase online student evaluation response rates

Course evaluations (often termed student evaluations of teaching or SETs) are pervasive in higher education. As SETs increasingly shift from pencil-and-paper to online, concerns grow over the lower response rates that typically accompany online SETs. This study of online SET response rates examined data from 678 faculty respondents and student response rates from an entire semester. The analysis focused on those tactics that faculty employ to raise response rates for their courses, and explored instructor and course characteristics as contributing factors. A comprehensive regression model was evaluated to determine the most effective tactics and characteristics. Using incentives had the most impact on response rates. Other effective tactics that increase response rates include reminding students to take the evaluation, explaining how the evaluations would be used to improve instruction, sending personal emails and posting reminders on Blackboard^®. Incentives are not widely used; however, findings suggest that non-point incentives work as well as point-based ones, as do simple-to-administer minimum class-wide response rate expectations (compared to individual completion).     

Landmark use by pigeons in a touch-screen spatial search task

Pigeons obtained food by pecking at an unmarked target location on a video screen equipped with a touch-sensitive frame. The target area was located near the top edge of the screen in Experiment 1 and near the left edge of the screen in Experiment 2. On baseline trials, a graphic landmark was located below and left of the target (Experiment 1) or below and right of the target (Experiment 2). In both experiments, baseline search distributions showed a single peak and were roughly symmetrical about the target area in both horizontal and vertical dimensions. On occasional test trials, the landmark was shifted horizontally, vertically, or diagonally by 1.5 cm or 3 cm. In both experiments, landmark shifts in the dimension parallel to the nearest edge produced systematic shifts in the peak place of search. Landmark shifts in the dimension perpendicular to the nearest edge produced inconsistent (Experiment 1) or relatively small (Experiment 2) shifts in peak place. The magnitude of the behavioral shift was always less than the magnitude of the landmark shift and was not consistently greater when the landmark was shifted by 3 cm than when it was shifted by 1.5 cm. These results demonstrated that pigeons can accurately locate an unmarked target area in a two-dimensional vertical arena and that their use of landmarks for spatial localization is similar in several respects to that found in open-field spatial search tasks.     

Studying and Working: A national study of student finances and student engagement

Tertiary Education and Management - A key determinant of the new relationship between students and universities in Australia is the changing nature of higher education funding arrangements and the...     

Land education: Indigenous,post-colonial,and decolonizing perspectives on place and environmental education research

This editorial introduces a special issue of Environmental Education Research titled ‘Land education: Indigenous, post-colonial, and decolonizing perspectives on place and environmental education research.’ The editorial begins with an overview of each of the nine articles in the issue and their contributions to land and environmental education, before outlining features of land education in more detail. ‘Key considerations’ of land education are discussed, including: Land and settler colonialism, Land and Indigenous cosmologies, Land and Indigenous agency and resistance, and The significance of naming. The editorial engages the question ‘Why land education?’ by drawing distinctions between land education and current forms of place-based education. It closes with a discussion of modes and methods of land education research.     

Starting up or starting over: the role of intentions to increase and maintain the behavior of exercise initiates

Across various social cognitive theories, behavioral intention is broadly argued to be the most proximal and important predictor of behavior (Ajzen, 1991; Gibbons, Gerrard, Blanton, & Russell, 1998; Rogers, 1983). It seems probable that an intention to increase behavior might be differentially determined from an intention to maintain behavior. Thus, the purpose of the current study was to examine (1) the change in two types of behavioral intention over time and (2) the relationship between intention and the social-cognitive factor mental imagery. Behavioral intention, exercise imagery, and observed exercise behavior was measured in 68 exercise initiates participating in a 12-week exercise program. Results revealed that behavioral intention to increase exercise behavior decreased over the exercise program, whereas intentions to maintain exercise behavior increased. Appearance and technique imagery were found to be significant predictors of intention to increase behavior during the first 6 weeks of the program, and only appearance imagery predicted intention to maintain exercise behavior during the last 6 weeks. These findings suggest that the two types of behavioral intention are distinguishable and may be useful targets for exercise behavior interventions.     

School leaders’ practices for innovative use of digital technologies in schools

School leaders’ practices to support the innovative use of digital technologies for teaching and learning and the conditions for technology-enhanced learning were studied in a 1:1 laptop initiative in two schools over a period of 3 years in Umeå, Sweden. The aim of this paper is to explore, analyze and discuss the possibilities and challenges in the final phase of this 1:1 initiative from the perspective of the school leader. The school leaders saw possibilities in new methods of working, sharing and collaboration, and created a beneficial environment for the use of digital technologies in teaching. The challenges were technical problems, supporting teachers in their work, and finding time to prioritize leadership for the use of digital technologies. How school organizers support school leaders’ practices in creating beneficial conditions for technology-enhanced learning will be important for how school leaders’ practices support, promote, and advance innovative and sustainable teaching and learning environments through the use of digital technologies.     

DCMI2013听会点滴

文章分享作者参加都柏林核心元数据组织（Dublin Core Metadata Initiative,DCMI）2013年国际会议的几点体会,重点在于采用规范数据支持数据实时混搭的两种不同方式、元数据属性映射的两种不同水平和表现方法,以及数字图书馆数据模型的三种不同实现方案。     

Giving feedback: Development of scales for the mum effect,discomfort giving feedback,and feedback medium preference

Research in organizational behavior and human resources promotes the view that it is critical for managers to provide accurate feedback to employees, yet little research addresses rater tendencies (i.e., the mum effect) and attitudes that influence how performance feedback is given. Because technology has changed the nature of communication in organizations (e.g., feedback given by e‐mail), there is a need to determine how a feedback giver's preference for the delivery medium might influence the message. In this article, we develop three scales measuring the mum effect, discomfort with giving feedback, and feedback medium preference to determine feedback givers' tendencies, which may be used to improve feedback delivery. We then used these scales in a feedback situation. Findings are reported and practical implications discussed.