A theory of change for student-led academic integrity

Breaches in academic integrity are a pervasive and enduring international concern to the overall quality of higher education. Despite students being the group most affected by academic integrity policies, organisational culture is such that students tend to be passive recipients of change initiatives, rather than the drivers. To deliver a paradigm change, a theory of change framework was designed, implemented and applied to explore the viability of a student-led academic integrity society. To achieve this, a national research project involving three stages of data collection (surveys, interviews and focus groups) was conducted to obtain the perspectives of students and student representatives. The key outcome of the project has been the recent launch of an academic integrity student society, a novel initiative outside the United States of America. The theory of change framework presented here seeks to offer guidance to other institutions contemplating the viability of student-led change to academic integrity and the establishment of academic integrity student societies, in particular.     

The path to mobile shopping compatibility

The mobile technology involves an unexplored world of doing business and consumer behavioral change that constitutes a revolution in the application of technologies to marketing. A key factor in the adoption of mobile commerce is the compatibility that the consumer perceives with his/her life. Given that the research on compatibility with mobile purchases made so far treats it as an antecedent of adoption, this pioneer research studies the influencing role of two more personal factors (self-efficacy and innovativeness) and two factors more related to the shopping (involvement and perceived entertainment). The model was tested using PLS with information from 583 Mexican mobile buyers. Our results show a positive effect of innovativeness, involvement and perceived entertainment on compatibility. On the contrary, self-efficacy does not seem to influence the perception of compatibility of mobile shopping with consumer life. This work has important implications for the practice of professionals dedicated to mobile commerce.     

Drug use,the transition from school to work and occupational achievement in the United States

To determine the effects of drug use on entry into the labor force and subsequent socioeconomic achievement, we estimated duration models of the time elapsed since first leaving school to the first fulltime civilian job and jobs held at ages 24–25 and 28–29. The duration models show inconsistent drug effects: women who use illicit drugs other than marijuana delay entry into the labor force while men who use alcohol daily experience a somewhat more rapid entry. Blacks and those with a lower level of educational attainment enter the labor force more slowly than non-blacks and those with higher educational levels. The more important determinants of occupational outcomes at entry and later points in the work career are the human capital variables, i.e. educational attainment and experience. Duration of time since leaving school to first job has a statistically significant and negative impact on earnings, which increases over time for men but not for women. Being black is consistently associated with higher earnings among women. Holding constant other determinants of socioeconomic achievement, such as family background factors, marital status, race, and participation in different activities and roles during high school, effects of drug use among men and women and across earnings and prestige of the job are weak and inconsistent. The only statistically significant effect is the positive impact of marijuana use on males’ earnings at age 29. The findings lead us to conclude that drug use has only minor impact on occupational achievement in early adulthood.     

Challenging the productivity mantra: academic writing with spirit in place

Academic writing groups aim to improve the quality and/or the rate of academic publications. In this article, the authors reflect on a writing group with academic and non-academic members that evolved over two years to uphold a deeper and arguably spiritual purpose. The group commenced with the aim of increasing its members' publication rates, but it developed to be a safe space for members to search for meaning as part of a fellowship of writers. This transition was based in the members’ shared commitment to social justice values and individual concerns to generate meaningful research and writing experiences. The group’s distinct processes, the shared values of its members and the site of the group meetings in a socially stigmatised community, all work to deepen its purpose beyond academic productivity. Though the group functions to strengthen individual and group norms that contribute to academic productivity, emergent norms and the fellowship of the writers foster a spiritual dimension in the group. This exploration of the spiritual dimension of a writing group adds to the long list of benefits of fellowship through academic writing groups.     

Children´s play and affective development: affect,school adjustment and learning in preschoolers / El juego infantil y el desarrollo afectivo: afecto,ajuste escolar y aprendizaje en la etapa preescolar

Preschool education is a privileged setting where social development and the progressive achievement of emotional adjustment occur. During this stage, affect plays an important role in social interaction. Furthermore, children’s play has been described as an activity with a great potential for promoting development. This article reports results from the systematic observation of 38 five- to six-year-old children in four different school activities on two separate occasions. A total number of 304 registries, totalling 1,520 minutes, were made during the observations, which were conducted with the objective of comparing affective expression in different activities and inquiring into its relationship to school adjustment and performance in preschoolers. It was found that affect’s intensity and quality is higher during play. Results are discussed taking into account positive relationships between affect and school adjustment and performance, concluding that children’s play is a privileged activity for affective development and should be promoted in preschool education.     

The development of orthographic and phonological strategies for the decoding of words in children

This study examined the use of orthographic and phonological deletion strategies by children in the 6–16‐year age range. Children from Grades 1 to 10 (n=191) were presented either visually or orally isolated words and were asked to pronounce these words using either an orthographic (spelling) strategy following mental deletion of one letter, or a phonological (sounding) strategy following mental deletion of one sound. All children performed additional reading and spelling tasks in which they read and spelt all the words and derivatives from the deletion tasks. Analysis of variance revealed that younger readers were more accurate when using phonological strategies than when using orthographic strategies, whereas older readers showed superior orthographic and phonological processing abilities. Generally the results supported the suggestion that phonological and orthographic processing ability increase with age, and that the increase in these abilities with age is not solely dependent on reading and spelling ability.     

Physical activity among Spanish adolescents: relationship with their relatives' physical activity - the AVENA study

Identifying factors related to physical activity levels in young people is important for a more efficient health promotion. The aims of this study were to assess physical activity levels in a national sample of urban Spanish adolescents, and to examine the association between significant others' physical activity (father, mother, brother, sister, and close friends) and that of the adolescents. The present study comprised 2260 adolescents (1157 boys, 1103 girls) aged 13.0-18.5 years participating in the AVENA Study. Both the adolescents' physical activity and that of their relatives and close friends was assessed by questionnaire. The odds of being active were higher in boys than girls (odds ratio?=?2.79, 95% confidence interval?=?2.34-3.33) and tended to decrease across age groups in both boys and girls. Father's and older brother's physical activity was associated with boys' physical activity, while that of any significant other was associated with girls' physical activity. When both parents reported being active, boys had nearly two times higher odds of being active and girls had nearly three times higher odds of being active. The physical activity levels of Spanish adolescents are in line with those previously reported. Physical activity levels in girls are strongly related to the physical activity of any significant other, whereas physical activity levels in boys are only related to their male relatives' physical activity.     

Visual representations of academic misconduct: Enhancing information literacy skills

Courses: This unit activity is suited for courses with research and source citation components, such as the Basic Communication; Interpersonal, and Organizational Communication courses.

Objectives: Students will (a) visually interpret and analyze instances of plagiarism; (b) revise their work to use proper citations and reduce instances of plagiarism; and (c) understand source citation as a form of academic honesty.     

Communicating openness in deliberation

Normative and practical accounts of deliberative democracy cite open-mindedness as a key feature of good deliberation. Yet scholars have often focused on attitude change or self-report measures to empirically demonstrate openness. This paper draws on grounded practical theory to understand openness as a discursive stance in public deliberation. Openness is used to address four practical problems encountered in deliberation: disagreement, opinion formation, dysfunctional community problem-solving, and deliberative sense making. Indicating openness and expressing attitude change are different discursive practices. Expecting participants to refrain from forming opinions before deliberation may be naïve. Instead, participants’ eagerness to make sense of deliberation by invoking shared understanding and openness should be used to develop meta-consensus.     

LEARNING POTENTIAL ASSESSMENT AND ADAPTATION TO THE EDUCATIONAL CONTEXT: THE USEFULNESS OF THE ACFS FOR ASSESSING IMMIGRANT PRESCHOOL CHILDREN

The objective of this study was to test the usefulness of dynamic assessment for determining cognitive abilities such as classification, auditory and visual memory, pattern sequences, perspective taking, verbal planning, learning potential, and metacognition in immigrant preschool children with and without competence in the dominant language (Spanish). One hundred seventy‐six preschool‐children were distributed in three groups according to the cultural background of their parents (native Spanish/Spanish‐speaking immigrants/non‐Spanish speaking immigrants). The children were assessed by means of the K‐BIT, the Application of Cognitive Functions Scale (ACFS), and metacognition, language competence and academic performance estimates. The results show that although there are initial differences in execution between the two groups (Spanish/immigrants), there are no differences with regard to learning potential. The study also demonstrates the importance of behavioral, attitudinal, and metacognitive variables in children's test execution and academic performance.