Effective University Leadership and Management of Learning and Teaching in a Widening Participation Context: Findings from two national Australian studies

Abstract

The paper argues for the need to increase student participation in university governance, especially in relation to high‐level decision‐making concerning the aims and mission of tertiary institutions. The paper examines the arguments in favour of, and against, student participation in university governance. It also provides an overview of the findings of recent empirical studies on the topic. The need for a process of negotiation in the setting of higher education aims is emphasised and several suggestions are offered regarding ways of increasing student involvement in the aims‐setting process.     

Mentorship Efforts to Support Part-time Social Work Faculty Members

Social work faculty experience increasing demands to develop and maintain a research portfolio that includes external funding and publications. Given the increase in research expectations, more part-time instructors are needed to teach courses. In addition to the literature review, we briefly describe a pilot part-time faculty mentorship project developed by our school to build a strong, connected, and consistent part-time faculty team. However, we also wanted to examine mentorship programs at other schools/departments of social work; as a result, we conducted an exploratory research study with social work deans and directors nationwide. Findings suggested that while schools of social work are more likely to employ greater numbers of faculty overall, departments tend to have higher teaching expectations for full-time tenure-track faculty. Despite variability among responses, most schools and departments provide some form of support to part-time faculty members; a lack of resources was given as the primary reason for limited mentorship activities.     

An ethic of care and educational practice

Abstract

This article explicates the theoretical framework of an ethic of care and outlines recommendations for applying the framework to practice in adventure education, offering possibilities for re-imagining organizations as centrally concerned with compassion and care. Focusing on the work of Gilligan and Noddings, we suggest an understanding of an ethic of care that is contextual, ungendered, and inclusive of both the private and public spheres of life, and draw parallels between this ethic and the philosophies underlying Outward Bound specifically, and adventure education more generally. Finally, we outline possibilities for organizing educational curricula around centres of care for self, others, and the natural world, using Noddings' suggested curricular components of modeling, dialogue, practice, and confirmation.     

In-Course Instructor-Guided Service Learning in a Community College General Psychology Class

Institutional and student level data from the Florida Community Colleges were examined to explore the Retention Index of the Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE). A simple correlation and regression analysis was conducted to determine if the CCSSE Retention Index could be used to predict the institutional retention rate calculated for the state accountability measure. Student level data were used with a nested ANOVA to examine if there were mean differences in the CCSSE Retention Index scores of males and females of different racial groups when accounting for the potential influence of the institution attended. Mean differences were examined since differences in retention rates of these groups have been documented.     

Learning Partnerships in Practice: Orientation,Leadership, and Residence Life

Committed to improving how their various programs serve student learning, Taran Cardone, Elizabeth Stoll Turton, Gerald Olson, and Marcia Baxter Magolda describe how their participation in Miami University's Community of Practice on Engaged Learning (COPEL) helped them create developmentally appropriate, learning‐centered approaches that support the complex task of student self‐authorship.     

The Choice of Response Probability in Bookmark Standard Setting: An Experimental Study

Evidence of the internal consistency of standard-setting judgments is a critical part of the validity argument for tests used to make classification decisions. The bookmark standard-setting procedure is a popular approach to establishing performance standards, but there is relatively little research that reflects on the internal consistency of the resulting judgments. This article presents the results of an experiment in which content experts were randomly assigned to one of two response probability conditions: .67 and .80. If the standard-setting judgments collected with the bookmark procedure are internally consistent, both conditions should produce highly similar cut scores. The results showed substantially different cut scores for the two conditions; this calls into question whether content experts can produce the type of internally consistent judgments that are required using the bookmark procedure.     

Automated Scoring of Constructed‐Response Science Items: Prospects and Obstacles

Content‐based automated scoring has been applied in a variety of science domains. However, many prior applications involved simplified scoring rubrics without considering rubrics representing multiple levels of understanding. This study tested a concept‐based scoring tool for content‐based scoring, c‐rater?, for four science items with rubrics aiming to differentiate among multiple levels of understanding. The items showed moderate to good agreement with human scores. The findings suggest that automated scoring has the potential to score constructed‐response items with complex scoring rubrics, but in its current design cannot replace human raters. This article discusses sources of disagreement and factors that could potentially improve the accuracy of concept‐based automated scoring.     

Shifting Practices,Shifting Selves: Negotiations of Local and Global Cultures Among Adolescents in Northern Thailand

Around the world, adolescents increasingly grow up as members of local and global cultures. Little is known, however, about how precisely adolescents in rapidly globalizing societies blend local and global cultures. Interviews with 40 (16- to 19-year old) Thai adolescents, evenly divided between rural and urban communities, were analyzed alongside participant observation data for the interplay between local and global linguistic and dietary practices. Results revealed that urban adolescents inhabited differentiated selves, alternating between local and global practices based on interactional partner. The activation of each assisted them in navigating—and in some cases, reshaping—hierarchies encountered in everyday relationships. Findings contribute to the developmental science of globalization and point to the utility of interrogating cultural practices as sites of self-negotiation in rapidly changing cultural contexts.     

Spatial localization in infancy: position constancy in a square and circular room with and without a landmark

The ability of 8-month-old infants to localize an event from a new direction of facing was tested in a square and a circular room with and without a landmark. Subjects were trained to anticipate the site from 2 directions of facing and then tested in a new direction of facing. The number of trials to a criterion of learning, the number of subjects looking first at the event site after reorientation, and the time spent in doing so were recorded. Taken together, the results show that at 8 months ability to identify the site of an event after reorientation is based on the spatial relationship between the event and environmental features. The latter include features associated with room shape as well as a landmark at the site of the event.     

Do Infants Use Their Own Images to Locate Objects Reflected in a Mirror?

The ability of infants to locate a toy from a mirror reflection was investigated in 3 experiments. In the first, it was found that a minority of 22-month-old infants turned to locate the toy that was the source of the reflection, and that localization of the toy occurred regardless of whether the infants' own image was visible in the mirror. The results of 2 further experiments indicated that younger infants aged 14 and 18 months rarely use mirror information to locate a toy. When they do so, they also turn whether or not images of themselves are visible. It is concluded that tasks involving the localization of objects or events from mirror images are not direct indices of self-recognition. Rather, they indicate the skill of infants in using the mirror as a perceptual tool.