One Policy,Disparate Reactions: Institutional Responses in Florida’s Developmental Education Reform

This paper seeks to better understand how community colleges in Florida planned to implement a new sweeping state policy pertaining to developmental education. Via a cluster analysis, we identify three distinct patterns in the ways in which the colleges responded to the policy: reformers, responders, and resisters. Further, we find that these patterns are related to the extent to which individual colleges had previously enacted campus-based developmental education reform measures, the magnitude of students previously enrolled in developmental education, and the colleges’ perceptions of the effectiveness of the policy.     

The Environment for Values Learning

This study examines the impact of the environment on pupils' learning of values. The sample selected for the study was 14 secondary schools, 3 Mission and 11 government schools. In all, 3102 Secondary 1 and 2 pupils were involved in the study. The study adopted an 80% cut-off point as a decision rule for interpreting the data. Among the dimensions considered were teacher helpfulness, affiliation, peer relationship and cooperativeness, class learning environment, values of respect, trust and attitude towards school rules. The study found that sharing and caring, mutual respect between teachers and pupils and courtesy were not strongly represented. It also found a bias towards friendship over obligation to public morality. On the positive side, there was strong achievement orientation and a belief among pupils that teachers were helpful and interested in pupils.     

Meaning of parental involvement among Korean immigrant parents: A mixed-methods approach

The authors' goal was to identify ways in which Korean immigrant parents define the concept of parental involvement and to examine the statistical significances of interrelationships among these meanings. Seventy-seven parents responded to an open-ended question that asked them to define the meaning of parental involvement; 141 responses were analyzed. Qualitative analysis resulted in four distinct categories: (a) support at home (68.8%), (b) home–school connection (17.7%), (c) participation in school (5.0%), and (d) duty (8.5%). The category of support at home was divided into three subcategories: Support of nonacademic development (31.9%), support of emotional psychological development (29.1%), and support of academic success (7.8%). A correlational analysis indicated that support of emotional psychological development was negatively correlated with home–school connection and support of academic success. The parents who considered parental involvement to be their duty did not perceive their roles as participating in home–school connections and supporting nonacademic development activities.     

Differentiating Different Types of Cognitive Load: a Comparison of Different Measures

Recent studies about learning and instruction use cognitive load measurement to pay attention to the human cognitive resources and to the consumption of these resources during the learning process. In order to validate different measures of cognitive load for different cognitive load factors, the present study compares three different methods of objective cognitive load measurement and one subjective method. An experimental three-group design (N = 78) was used, with exposure to seductive details (extraneous cognitive load factor), mental animation tasks (germane cognitive load factor), or the basic learning instruction (control group). Cognitive load was measured by the rhythm method (Park and Brünken 2015), the index of cognitive activity (ICA) (Marshall 2007), and the subjective ratings of mental effort and task difficulty (Paas 1992). Eye-tracking data were used to analyze the attention allocation and as an indicator for cognitive activity. The results show a significantly higher cognitive load for the mental animation group in contrast to the control and the seductive detail group, indicated by rhythm method and subjective ratings, as well as a higher cognitive activity, indicated by eye tracking. Furthermore, the mental animation group shows significantly higher comprehension performance in contrast to the seductive detail group and significantly higher transfer performance in contrast to the control group. The ICA values showed no significant differences in cognitive load. The results provide evidence for the benefits of combining eye-tracking analysis and the results of cognitive load ratings or secondary task performance for a direct and continuous cognitive load assessment and for a differentiating access to the single cognitive load factors.     

Gender and online health information: a partitioned technology assessment

Objective: To examine the extent to which health information seeking behaviors vary across genders or are differentially associated with access to computers, the Internet, and online health information. Research design: Stratified survey, data analysis. Methods: Using binary logistic regression we examine information seeking differences between demographic groups. Questions addressed include: 1) Are any identified groups significantly underserved regarding access to computers, access to the Internet, and preferences for seeking online health information, and 2) have differences between gender groups in access to computers, Internet services and online health information narrowed, remained constant, or widened over recent years, following recent national initiatives to narrow the technology gap for underserved populations? Outcomes: Information seeking variation across gender groups and between technologies was at times significant. There was little difference in the access to computer between females and males. In 2002, 75.4% and 73.1% of female and male participants reported that they occasionally use computers, respectively. In 2000, the respective figures were 72.4% and 72.7%. The rates of use of Internet services among computer users, however, were quite different between female and male (P_{at 2002}= 0.0002 and P_{at 2000}= 0.0082) and the disparity in 2000 (OR = 0.7366 [0.5870, 0.9243]) increased in 2002 (OR = 0.5675 [0.4222, 0.7627]). The odds ratios (OR) indicate that females were 0.7366 and 0.5675 times less likely to use computers than male counterparts in 2000 and 2002, respectively. Conclusion: Recent technology initiatives in the US aimed at reducing disparities in access to online resources appear to have had little effect in facilitating equal access to web‐based health information.     

HUMAN SUBJECTS AND COGNITIVE AGING RESEARCH: A UNIQUE SOLUTION TO A PERENNIAL PROBLEM

A fundamental concern of cognitive aging researchers is to find a representative sample of healthy, older adults who are willing to participate in experimental research. There are essentially two methods for marshalling a sizable body of older research participants. One can solicit the aid of local community‐dwelling adults through civic and church‐related organizations. Alternatively, one can travel to specific locations where elderly people are likely to congregate, for example, a retirement community. In this article, we describe our experiences with these two methods of research‐participant recruitment. The processes involved in both securing and utilizing a local body of research volunteers are presented first. We then discuss two subject‐testing expeditions outside of the university environment that have been highly successful. In the final section, we contrast selected demographic characteristics of our local and off‐site research volunteers and discuss the implications of differences between these two populations for conducting research with aged people.     

Validation of the Korean version Gender Role Conflict Scale for Adolescents

The objective of this study was to examine the usefulness of the Korean version of the Gender Role Conflict Scale for Adolescents (GRCS-A; Blazina et al. 2005) in Korea. Korean high school students (N = 374) completed the K-GRCS-A. Results of confirmatory factor analysis supported the original 4-factor structures. Reliability was acceptable to satisfactory limits. Further evidence of construct validity was found in modest correlations with psychological well-being variables. Taken together, this study sustained the utility of the K-GRCS-A.