Using Task Clarification,Checklists and Performance Feedback to Improve the Appearance of a Grocery Store

An intervention package of task clarification, checklists, and posted performance feedback was developed to increase completion of tasks contributing to the appearance of a local grocery store. The intervention package was based on an informal diagnostic assessment that examined antecedents, equipment and processes, knowledge and skills, and consequences in the organizational environment. A multiple baseline design across five departments was utilized to evaluate the effects of the intervention package on employee cleaning behavior related to the appearance of the store. The results suggest overall improvement of task completion across the five departments observed, with substantial increases resulting from application of the intervention. The mean percentage of tasks completed in the deli department increased by 36%; by 93% in the meat department; by 38% in the frozen department; by 25% in the produce department; and by 34% in the front‐end department. The average increase of task completion across departments was more than 45%. The results of this study are consistent with those of Anderson, Crowell, Hantula, and Siroky (1988), as well as with La Fleur and Hyten (1995), demonstrating that task clarification, checklists, and feedback have positive effects on work performance.     

Different systems—Similar challenges? Factors impacting the motivation of German and U.S. teachers to become school leaders

In the United States and Germany, effective school leadership is pivotal to a school's success. Yet in each country, attracting and retaining qualified school leaders is a formidable challenge. This study compares the influence of possible motivators and inhibitors that impact teachers’ decisions to become principals in the two countries. Survey responses of 311 U.S. students in principal preparation programs in the United States and responses of 117 German students in similar programs in Germany indicate that many factors that motivate and inhibit U.S. and German teachers to become school leaders are similar. The results also reveal areas in which the U.S. and Germany may learn from each other regarding motivators and inhibitors to becoming school administrators.     

Using a computer-aided personalized system of instruction to enhance the mastery of statistics in online learning

This study compared the effectiveness of teaching a distance education statistics course using a computer-aided personalized system of instruction (CAPSI) in comparison to a distance education course that used video lectures. Data were collected between 2017 and 2022. Two-hundred and sixty-eight students were included in the sample. Results supported that students enrolled in the CAPSI statistics course were less likely to drop out of the course and mastered significantly more material than students enrolled in the lecture-based distance education course. It is recommended that instructors teaching statistics in distance education settings consider using CAPSI to improve student outcomes.     

No place to call home: Cultural homelessness, self-esteem and cross-cultural identities

This study examined relations between a cross-cultural geographically mobile childhood and adulthood cultural homelessness, attachment to cross-cultural identities, and self esteem. Cross-cultural identities are loosely defined identities (e.g., third culture kids, military brats, missionary kids) that describe some individuals’ childhood cross-cultural experience. The 475 participants spent at least two years before age 18 in a country different from their parents’ home culture, then returned to the latter. They completed an online survey which included general demographic information regarding cross-cultural experiences in childhood, as well as the Cultural Homelessness Criteria, the Rosenberg Self Esteem Scale, and items that evaluated the strength of affirmation, belonging, and commitment to a self-labeled cross-cultural identity. Cultural homelessness was related to lower self esteem scores; higher affirmation, belonging and commitment to any cross-cultural identity was related to higher self esteem and lower cultural homelessness. Furthermore, such affirmation, belonging, and commitment buffered the cultural homelessness-self esteem association, whereas just having a cross-cultural identity did not.     

Rural women in development: Veil of invisibility,world of workFemmes rurales et le developpement: Voile d'invisibilite,monde de travailLas mujeres rurales en el desarrolo: El velo de las invisibilidad,en mundo del trabajo

Over the last decade, evidence has been accumulating that the process of development has resulted more frequently in greater economic marginalization than benefits for poor rural women in much of the Third World. Yet recent efforts aimed at incorporating these poor non-urban women into development have been hampered by the “veil of invisibility” hiding their past and present conditions and contributions. This article formulates some hypotheses concerning female invisibility as well as productivity, and then contrasts the extant view of rural Third World women as relatively unproductive with (1) evidence drawn from evolutionary history, and (2) data from new micro-level and UN studies. The former indicates that women were the primary producers in most pre-agrarian human groups. The latter indicate that women continue to produce approximately half the world's food, although there is dramatic regional variation. The article concludes with an analysis of the statistical biases and stereotypes that obscure these contributions and briefly indicates the cost of this invisibility to the countries involved as well as to the women themselves.     

Investigating Flipped Learning: Student Self-Regulated Learning,Perceptions, and Achievement in an Introductory Biology Course

In flipped classrooms, lectures, which are normally delivered in-class, are assigned as homework in the form of videos, and assignments that were traditionally assigned as homework, are done as learning activities in class. It was hypothesized that the effectiveness of the flipped model hinges on a student’s desire and ability to adopt a self-directed learning style. The purpose of this study was twofold; it aimed at examining the relationship between two variables—students’ perceptions of the flipped model and their self-regulated learning (SRL) behaviors—and the impact that these variables have on achievement in a flipped class. For the study, 76 participants from a flipped introductory biology course were asked about their SRL strategy use and perceptions of the flipped model. SRL strategy use was measured using a modified version of the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ; Wolters et al. 2005), while the flipped perceptions survey was newly derived. Student letter grades were collected as a measure of achievement. Through regression analysis, it was found that students’ perceptions of the flipped model positively predict students’ use of several types of SRL strategies. However, the data did not indicate a relationship between student perceptions and achievement, neither directly nor indirectly, through SRL strategy use. Results suggest that flipped classrooms demonstrate their successes in the active learning sessions through constructivist teaching methods. Video lectures hold an important role in flipped classes, however, students may need to practice SRL skills to become more self-directed and effectively learn from them.     

Who is the newer researcher into higher education? Locating ourselves in shifting terrains

This article aims to deconstruct the underpinning tenets of the term ‘newer researcher into higher education’. In recognition of the ambiguities of the term, we begin by questioning the nature of the field(s) of research into higher education (HE). Secondly, we critique the policy discourses associated with the term ‘newer researcher’. Then, with a view to illustrating the over-linear assumptions of such discourses, the article articulates the biographies of practising researchers in this field through narrative reconstructions of the five authors’ own routes as researchers into HE, openly acknowledging their temporalities and serendipitous conditionalities. Finally, we consider the nature of a career in the context of the professionalisation of routes into HE research. Our concluding remarks return us to the question of the status of HE research and to suggestions of positive ways to embrace the dilemmas we face.