Stress among accounting educators in the United States

This research investigates stress among accounting educators and examines relationships between stress levels and work satisfaction levels, personality traits, and stress-coping techniques. Self-administered questionnaires were used, and 164 accounting faculty members from 41 states responded. Results of regression analyses indicated that higher stress levels can be predicted, with a relatively strong multipleR value, by a combination of variables. Of the variables investigated, overall work satisfaction was the variable most closely related to higher stress levels. The most important personality characteristics of higher stress individuals were impatience, assertiveness, workaholism, and idealism. Stress-coping techniques associated with higher stress levels were recreational time off, cultivation and maintenance of friendships among colleagues, and physical exercise. These same independent variables had minimal predictive ability for the stress level of the lower stress group of faculty.     

Mighty mouse and MX missiles: Children in a violent society

Ours is a society in which violence, or the threat of violence, is a common experience for many children. Children's fears of the dark, the boogie man, and the headless Horseman have evolved to include fears of Darth Vadar, meltdown, and nuclear war.     

Beyond magical thinking: Doing the real work of diversifying our institutions

U.S. Supreme Court opinions have left some doors open for institutions to build the kinds of diverse student populations that are known to enrich the learning of all students. But simply inviting diverse students through those doors is not doing nearly enough.     

Developing an interactive augmented reality system as a complement to plant education and comparing its effectiveness with video learning

The learning of plants has garnered considerable attention in recent years, but students often lack the motivation to learn about the process of plant growth. Also, students are not able to apply what they have learned in class in the form of observation, since plant growth takes a long time. In this study, we use augmented reality (AR) technology to develop the ARFlora system, which can assist students in observing the changes in plant growth while in the classroom. More specifically, students are able to use AR markers to manipulate various virtual objects (e.g. sunlight) and observe the changes they have on plant growth. Meanwhile, a quasi-experimental evaluation is in place to substantiate the effectiveness of ARFlora in the learning of plants and to compare it with digital video learning. In the quasi-experimental design, 55 elementary-school students participated in the study. The participants are divided into two groups, an “experimental group” and a “control group.” The experimental group was taught using the ARFlora system, while the control group was taught by employing the digital video. Results show that (1) ARFlora and digital video have the same effectiveness on student's learning outcomes; (2) ARFlora is more effective in helping students retain learned knowledge; and (3) ARFlora is comparatively more useful in motivating students to learn about plants.     

Database Problem Behavior: A Literature Retrieval System for Professionals Dealing with Problem Behaviours of Individuals with Intellectual Disabilities

Knowledge of the literature among professionals in the area of problem behaviours and developmental disabilities is most likely soon out of date as several hundred useful studies appear each year. A literature database may be a useful tool for clinicians and researchers to conveniently retrieve needed information, preventing them from collecting, reading, processing, and storing all the available material. This report describes a database (i.e., Database Problem Behavior) encompassing information that goes far beyond presenting abstracts only. The third version of the database encompasses 885 empirical studies on the (functional) analysis, and behavioural and pharmacological treatment of problem behaviours (e.g., self‐injurious behaviour, aggressive behaviour, depression) for persons with developmental disabilities.     

Predicting university preference and attendance: Applied marketing in higher education administration

A multi-attribute attitude model, based on the efforts of Rosenberg and Fishbein, was used to determine whether a multicriteria scale can be used to predict student preferences for and attendance at universities. Data were gathered from 241 freshmen attending five state universities in Ohio. Responsents were asked to weight the importance of 18 selection criteria and evaluate seven universities using those criteria. These data were processed through the model, and the results were compared to the respondents' preference ordering of the universities. The results indicate a high level of predictability, particularly for highly ranked universities. Implications for the marketing of higher educational institutions are discussed.     

两条小路

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler,     

Structural determinants of interinstitutional cooperation in higher education

Five interorganizational relationships among higher educational institutions, representing major structural and functional variations, were studied intensively using field research procedures to elucidate determinants of successful cooperative activities. Among the factors to be taken into account relative to the operational success of voluntary consortia are member institutional prestige, strength, developmental level, and climate. Further, problem solving and resource distribution, as two major benefits of cooperation, result in different interorganizational patterns.