Understanding student/alumni satisfaction from a consumer's perspective: The effects of institutional performance and program outcomes

The benefits of understanding and promoting student/alumni satisfaction are numerous. While this article draws on previous studies of the determinants of satisfaction in higher education, it has a different research focus. The study investigates the student/alumni satisfaction phenomenon in a consumer satisfaction framework. Results indicate that the formation of satisfaction judgments is a multidimensional process, and that the process is dependent on the degree of goal development that a student has for a particular aspect of his or her educational experience. If students have poorly formed goals for an aspect of education, they are likely to base their satisfaction judgments on institutional performance. If their goals are well formed, they are likely to base satisfaction judgments on the outcomes of the institutional performance. In general, however, student/alumni assessments of satisfaction with higher education are influenced by both the perceived quality of the service provider's performance and the perceived outcomes of that performance.The authors' names are ordered alphabetically to reflect equal contributions.     

Physical abuse during adolescence: Gender differences in the adolescents' perceptions of family functioning and parenting

OBJECTIVE: To examine the relationship between physical abuse of adolescents and parenting by mothers and fathers and whether the association differs by gender. METHODS: Subjects were adolescents, 51 girls and 45 boys, documented by Child Protective Services (CPS) as physically abused during adolescence. Comparison subjects were non-abused adolescents, 47 girls and 48 boys, from the same suburban communities. Subjects completed the following: Family Adaptability and Cohesion Evaluation Scale, Parental Bonding Instrument, modified Conflict Tactics Scale (assessing physical abuse/punishment by each parent). RESULTS: Although CPS generally cited fathers as the abuse perpetrators, abused boys and girls often reported experiencing physical maltreatment from both parents. Not surprisingly, comparison subjects rated parents more positively than abused subjects. For both groups, mothers were perceived as more caring and less controlling, were reported to have closer relationships with their adolescents, and were less likely to use abuse/harsh punishment than were fathers. Differences between the adolescents' perceptions of mothers and fathers were more pronounced for abused than for comparison subjects. Boys' and girls' perceptions of parenting were generally similar except that girls, especially the abused girls, reported feeling less close to fathers. Abused girls also viewed mothers as less caring than the other groups viewed mothers. Abused girls were also less likely than abused boys to perceive that either parent, but particularly fathers, had provided them with an optimum style of parenting. CONCLUSIONS: Adolescents who experienced relatively mild physical abuse reported dysfunctional family relationships, which may place them at risk of poor adult outcomes. Adolescents' reports suggest that CPS reports may underestimate physical maltreatment by mothers.     

Examining the Perspectives of Latino Families of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder Towards Advocacy

Rapidly becoming the largest ethnic group of American students, compared to White students with disabilities, Latino students with disabilities receive less services and their parents are more likely to struggle to receive services. Yet, it is unclear how Latino families advocate for their children with disabilities including how cultural values facilitate their advocacy efforts. In this study, four focus groups were conducted with 46 Latino parents of children with autism spectrum disorder. Parents reported advocating by being assertive but not aggressive, being involved in school activities, communicating with the school and documenting the communication, and relying on knowledge and faith. Parents also reported facilitators (i.e., knowledge and resources, increased parent-school communication, and greater peer support) and barriers (i.e., poor school experiences, school related-stress, and stigma and discrimination) to advocacy. Implications for research, policy, and practice are discussed.     

Systemic cognitive-developmental therapy: A counselling model and an integrative classification schema for working with partners and families

Systemic Cognitive-Developmental Therapy (SCDT) represents a holistic, non-pathological, and integrative approach to partner and family counselling. The model directly links developmental constructs to the counselling process and offers specific assessment and treatment strategies that can be easily learned and applied in the immediacy of the counselling encounter. Additionally, it offers a classification schema that clinicians can use to organize familiar counselling and therapy approaches into a developmental framework. This article introduces the theory and practice of SCDT, illustrates the techniques and strategies specific to the model, and provides illustrative partner, family, and client examples for clarification.Paper presented in April, 1994 at the International Conference on Counselling in the Family in München, Germany, sponsored by the International Round Table for the Advancement of Counselling.     

Victims of Bullying in Schools

This article provides an overview of current research on bullying (peer victimization, peer harassment) in school, with a focus on victims of such bullying. The 1st section provides a working definition of bullying and its many forms. The 2nd section describes some of the known consequences of being bullied for mental health, physical health, and academic achievement. The 3rd section turns to individual characteristics that might place children at risk for being bullied. The 4th section describes school-based interventions to reduce bullying and its negative effects. The final section considers implications of research on school bullying for teacher practice.     

Sharing a place-based indigenous methodology and learnings

Abstract

Building on a methodology of Cooperative Inquiry, the outcomes of five interconnected place-based learning projects from Australia are synthesised and elaborated in this paper. The methodology can facilitate the everyday living and sharing of an Earth-based consciousness: one that enriches Transformative Sustainability Education (TSE) through recognising meanings and stories in landscape, and celebrates Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing. Indigenous-led environmental education is shown to link with one of the longest continuous environmental education systems in the world and it is contended that because of its ongoing history, environmental education carries a cultural obligation. In Australia, every landscape is Indigenous and storied, and all Australians have an inherent right to learn that joy in place, along with the responsibility to care for it. Teaching and learning a relationship with place as family, is one way that environmental education can lead that campaign. This place-based methodology is a lifetime commitment involving everyday actions for change, a whole-of-education dedication.     

Children using Facebook: teachers’ discursive constructions of childhood

Conceptualizations of childhood are powerful determinants of adults’ interactions with children, and technology and social networking systems are affecting the nature of teachers’ knowledge of childhood. We analyzed questionnaire responses from 57 elementary-level teachers from Quebec regarding children’s use of Facebook. Through discourse analyses, we found four common images of childhood (child as innocent, evil, future adult, and agent) present in the teachers’ responses; however, the context of social media brought to fore questions about adult surveillance at a time of generational pliability and teachers’ self-understanding in relation to their knowledge of children.