Characteristics of SAT Quantitative Items Showing Improvement After Coaching Among Black Students From Low-Income Families: An Exploratory Study

The present exploratory investigation is an extension of a 1985 study that evaluated a Scholastic Aptitude Test preparation program involving black urban students. The present study was conducted to determine if there are identifiable characteristics of quantitative items associated with a susceptibility to coaching. Items showing p-value improvements of. 10 after coaching were compared with items not showing such improvements; comparisons were made in terms of the content, type. format, level of cognitive requirement, and position of the items. Items showing improvement were found across content areas, formats, and type. Findings are discussed in relation to the usefulness and improvement of well-designed supplemental instructional programs that have the potential to affect criterion performance in mathematics     

Literacy Through the Book Arts

Children as readers and writers-and now as book artists too. Paul Johnson shows how children can be helped to learn the skills of book-making, thus empowering them as writers and illustrators by helping them to become the creators of beautiful books. The story grammars of different cultures include the way a story is laid out for people to read; Paul Johnson describes book designs from various cultures and shows how different book forms require children to read and tell stories in certain ways. Illustrations of various designs are shown within the article.     

Choice of Academic Major at a Public Research University: The Role of Gender and Self-Efficacy

Females are underrepresented in certain disciplines, which translates into their having less promising career outlooks and lower earnings. This study examines the effects of socio-economic status, academic performance, high school curriculum and involvement in extra-curricular activities, as well as self-efficacy for academic achievement on choices of academic disciplines by males and females. Disciplines are classified based on Holland’s theory of personality-based career development. Different models for categorical outcome variables are compared including: multinomial logit, nested logit, and mixed logit. Based on the findings presented here, first generation status leads to a greater likelihood of choosing engineering careers for males but not for females. Financial difficulties have a greater effect on selecting scientific fields than engineering fields by females. The opposite is true for males. Passing grades in calculus, quantitative test scores, and years of mathematics in high school as well as self-ratings of abilities to analyze quantitative problems and to use computing are positively associated with choice of engineering fields.     

Thanks,but no-thanks for the feedback

Feedback is an emotional business in which personal disposition influences what is attended to, encoded, consolidated and eventually retrieved. Here, we examine the extent to which students’ perceptions of feedback and their personal dispositions can be used to predict whether they appreciate, engage with and act on the feedback that they receive. The study is framed in psychological theories of mindset, defensive behaviours and new psychometric measures of the psychological integration of assessment feedback. Results suggest that, in this university population, growth mindset students were in the minority. Generally, students are fostering self-defensive behaviours that fail to nurture remediation following feedback. Recommendations explore the implications for students who engage in self-deception, and the ways in which psychologists and academics may intercede to help students progress academically by increasing their self-awareness.     

The changing status of higher education in the ‘moronic inferno’

Getting a good and relevant education is difficult enough to achieve within a context where social and economic needs are constantly unsettled by political policy. The public funding of the education sector has become a contested arena irrespective of a government’s ideology. Recent graduates from various disciplines from Town Planning to Philosophy report in university destination surveys that they have only found employment in areas unrelated to their academic training – for instance, in supermarkets, restaurants and other low-level service industries. How has it happened that the universalisation of mass higher education has contributed to a disconnect between the individual’s social aspirations and their economic status? What happened to the tacit promise that an extended period of intellectual development would prepare the individual for a life of valuable social contribution and financial security? Part of the answer lies in the success of higher education itself. Its popularity has changed its transformative capacity and allowed operational efficiencies to overrule academic quality. The university, ideally seen as a repository of intellectual intuition, has been remade into yet another modern corporation concerned with the bottom line and financial security. Why has it been necessary to remake the university in the image of the department store, supermarket or bank, and how has it been achieved without more critique?     

Academic attitudes toward new media: An exploratory multidisciplinary study

This article looks at the attitudes of UK academics toward new media, utilizing organizational and sociocultural understandings of fields of scholarly enquiry. It focuses on four traditionally distinct disciplines—art and design, computer science, health science, and politics and international relations—representative of the range of approaches in higher education. Agreement was found among respondents across disciplinary communities about what new media represent and how they support their work. Analysis of semantic differential charts identified two dimensions underlying attitudes—“flexibility” and “fitness for scholarly purposes.” Rather than being anchored by epistemological divisions, new media are assessed by practical viewpoints relating to the activity types they allow, and by traditional measures of reliability. In response to questions about other characteristics of their disciplines (such as reputation and audience diversity), distinctions are in evidence, although in some cases these are not traditional ones.     

The exotic world of Pierre Pomet's A Compleat History of Druggs

The English translation of Pierre Pomet's A Compleat History of Druggs (1712) demonstrates how the expansion of print culture altered the way that scientific ideas were communicated. Although it makes utilitarian claims, the text of the History departs from the style of contemporary British pharmacopoeias by emphasizing the exotic aspects of drugs. In this sense, the text exemplifies how Enlightenment science could be sold to a cross-over audience interested as much in the fantastical as in the quality and operation of drugs.     

Pre-service teachers’ episodic memories of classroom management

This study focused on past excellent teachers’ classroom management strategies from the perspective of 148 pre-service teachers. The purpose of the study was to examine how pre-service teachers’ memories reflect classroom management models that are typically taught in teacher education coursework prior to their study of those models, as well as to explore memories that did not fit a particular model. Results indicated that pre-service teachers related episodes that clustered on establishing rules, but were less likely to relate experiences based on other strategies such as withitness, smooth transitions, or formal classroom meetings. Implications for teacher education are explored.