The Influence of James C. McCroskey’s Research in South Korea

In honor and remembrance of Dr. James C. McCroskey, this article looks at McCroskey’s influence in Korean academic fields. We find that McCroskey’s scholarly articles and books were increasingly cited from 2001 to 2016 and that his work has been cited in Korean journals across diverse fields. In addition to the communication and education fields, McCroskey was cited also in the fields of science and medicine in South Korea. The findings document the international and interdisciplinary impact of McCroskey’s scholarship.     

Equal access to early childhood education in South Korea using the Geographic Information System

While the importance of early childhood education is well documented, scant attention is afforded to the access to institutions for early childhood education. Uneven distribution of institutions for early childhood education in segregated metropolitan areas can cause inequality of educational opportunity. By using the Geographic Information System tools, this paper investigates the extent to which both demand and supply in early childhood education is geographically balanced across Seoul, Korea. The analysis finds that kindergartens and daycare centres authorised by the government are evenly distributed across Seoul according to the demand. Yet, market-oriented English kindergartens are disproportionately concentrated in the southern areas of Seoul where families with higher income levels are clustered. These findings suggest that because market-driven institutions for early childhood education are not uniformly distributed corresponding to the demand, home residence according to parents’ income and occupation creates a type of educational inequality.     

Training and performance improvement professionals' perspectives on ethical challenges during evaluation

Ethical concerns are rising in the business world. With this in mind, training and performance improvement practitioners, especially during evaluation projects, should be aware of principles and codes of ethics, and their behaviors and decisions should reflect the standards recognized by members of the professional society. A study was conducted with 108 training and performance improvement practitioners to reveal the reasoning behind their judgments of ethically challenging evaluation situations and to understand their rationales through the lens of existing guiding principles. Participants read three scenarios and judged the ethicality of the evaluator's actions in each scenario. Results revealed that participants who were aware of both the International Society for Performance Improvement's Code of Ethics and American Evaluation Association's Guiding Principles for Evaluators were stricter in their judgments about the ethicality of one scenario than those who were not. This article discusses implications of the results and higher education's role in reinforcing an ethical culture and ethical practice by employees.     

Rates and Predictors of Counseling Center Use Among College Students of Color

A comparison of institutional enrollment data and counseling center service utilization data at 66 universities showed that neither ethnic minority students nor European American students under‐ or overutilized counseling services (Study 1). Data from Study 2 examining students in the general campus bodies at 45 institutions indicated that utilization of counseling center services for students of various ethnicities was predicted by the ethnic composition of the counseling center staff. Among students of color, utilization of campus counseling services was predicted by greater psychological distress, less family support, and a history of previous psychological problems.     

Foundational Concepts for Conducting Program Evaluations

Evaluation is one of the critical steps in the process of performance improvement. Evaluation feeds evidence‐based information back to the next cycle of performance improvement. However, organizations often neglect to conduct comprehensive evaluations on their programs due to environmental barriers or the lack of practitioners’ evaluation expertise. This article presents some of the foundational evaluation‐related concepts and procedures that would help human performance improvement practitioners when conducting comprehensive systematic and systemic evaluations of the interventions implemented in organizations: (a) evaluation versus research, (b) front‐end evaluation versus back‐end evaluation, (c) definition of program evaluation, (d) types of program stakeholders, (e) development of program logic models, (f) formative evaluation versus summative evaluation, (g) merit versus worth, and (h) development of evaluation dimensions. Such foundational knowledge is just one of the first steps to prevent evaluations from being neglected or mistaken with simple measurements through administering instruments such as smiley sheets.     

Inequality from the first day of school: The role of teachers' academic intensity and sense of responsibility in moderating the learning growth gap

The author used the concepts of academic intensity and sense of responsibility to examine whether children with low school readiness may be moderated by the amount of exposure to learning activities and the attitudes that teachers hold toward these children. Analysis of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study–Kindergarten Cohort revealed that children who experienced high levels of teachers' academic intensity and sense of responsibility displayed greater achievement growth than did their peers who did not receive this support. Furthermore, teachers' sense of responsibility moderated the association between school readiness and mathematics learning growth over the course of elementary school years, which contributed in reducing the learning growth gap engendered given low school readiness. Based on these findings the present study suggests a need for continuous support during the schooling years, as well as before the start of school, to compensate for a lower skill level at school entry.     

Measuring twenty-first century skills: development and validation of a scale for in-service and pre-service teachers

A self-report scale that measures teachers’ confidence in teaching students about twenty-first century skills was developed and validated with pre-service and in-service teachers. First, 16 items were created to measure teaching confidence in six areas: information literacy, collaboration, communication, innovation and creativity, problem solving, and responsible citizenship. Then, the items were tested in two groups of pre-service teachers and two groups of in-service teachers respectively. Exploratory factor analyses and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted to examine the scale’s validity and reliability. The analyses identified a three-construct scale including innovation and problem solving, collaboration, and utility of technology for pre-service teachers and a one-dimension scale, cross-functional skills, for in-service teachers. This study suggests that different scales should be used to measure in-service teachers’ and pre-service teachers’ confidence in teaching twenty-first century skills.     

A Meta‐Analytic Review of Graphic Organizers and Science Instruction for Adolescents with Learning Disabilities: Implications for the Intermediate and Secondary Science Classroom

This article presents a meta‐analysis of experimental and quasi‐experimental studies in which intermediate and secondary students with learning disabilities were taught science content through the use of graphic organizers (GOs). Following an exhaustive search for studies meeting specified selection criteria, 23 standardized mean effect sizes were extracted from six articles involving 271 participants in grades 6 through 12. Findings included that, across immediate posttest and maintenance conditions, the use of GOs was associated with increased vocabulary knowledge and factual comprehension measured by researcher‐generated multiple‐choice tests in science. Conclusions, implications for future research, and practical recommendations are presented.     

Supply chain information capabilities and performance outcomes: An empirical study of Korean steel suppliers

This article discusses how supply chain information capabilities are instrumental to achieve performance outcomes. We identify critical components of supply chain information capabilities in terms of inter-organizational information system capacity and inter-organizational relational competency. In view of the high degree of industry concentration in Korea, this article presents and tests a research model using a sample of Korean steel suppliers. Empirical tests are conducted using the structural equation modeling, PLS (partial least squares). The results of this study suggest that Korean manufacturing (e.g., automobile, shipbuilding, construction, and mobile industries) are heavily influenced by the competitiveness of the steel industry in terms of supply chain information capabilities and performance outcomes—supply chain-level (i.e., supply chain flexibility) and firm-level performance outcomes (i.e., customer responsiveness and cost reductions). Future research may extend the findings of this study in other country contexts to accomplish both customer responsiveness and cost reductions through supply chain information capabilities.