Students’ perceptions of the academic environment and approaches to studying in British postgraduate business education

Recent research on student learning in higher education has identified clear associations between variations in students’ perceptions of the academic environment and variations in their study behaviour. This study investigated a general theoretical model linking students’ demographic characteristics, perceptions and study behaviour with measures of outcome, and in particular, compared three accounts of the causal relationship between perceptions and study behaviour. Data were obtained from 469 postgraduate students at six British business schools. Path analysis was used to assess the causal relationships among the students’ age and gender, their scores on the Course Experience Questionnaire, their scores on the Revised Approaches to Studying Inventory and their ratings of general satisfaction with their programmes. This yielded evidence for the causal efficacy of most of the paths identified in the general theoretical model. In particular, as in the case of students taking more traditional academic subjects, there exists a bidirectional causal relationship between variations in students’ perceptions of the academic environment and variations in their study behaviour.     

The Future of Student Self-Assessment: a Review of Known Unknowns and Potential Directions

Educational Psychology Review - This paper reviews current known issues in student self-assessment (SSA) and identifies five topics that need further research: (1) SSA typologies, (2) accuracy, (3)...     

La Parte Chusca of a Pedagogical Here and Now: Oaxacan Teachers’ Heteroglossic Joking About State Repression and Educational Reform

Faced with repression and reform, humor has become tactical for public school teachers in Oaxaca, Mexico, engaged in a decades-old movement that after 2006 involved intensified street- and school-based pedagogies. This piece explores how humor adds to a political project via mocking names, images, and dictates of elite leaders to bring a here and now to what is taken as inaccessible in the teachers’ political lives. Humor forms part of an (e)sc(h)atology in which critical practices are part eschatological, a call for definite transformation, and part scatological, embodied vulgarity. La parte chusca (the funny part), its (e)sc(h)atological contribution, angles toward critical literacies in Oaxaca and beyond.     

The Relationship between Attitudes, Knowledge, and Demographic Variables of High School Teachers Regarding Food Irradiation

ABSTRACT:  The purpose of this study was to use a validated instrument to determine the attitudes and knowledge of high school teachers regarding food irradiation, and to determine the correlations among their knowledge and attitudes and certain demographic variables. Knowledge and attitudes about food irradiation were measured in selected high school family and consumer sciences teachers ( n = 121) who taught Food and Nutrition, Food Science and Technology, and/or Food Production Management and Services, via a 24-item instrument with 6 factors. Results revealed these teachers held neutral to positive attitudes about the safety of irradiated foods, their perception of the risk of foodborne illness, and learning about food irradiation, and neutral to negative perceptions of their understanding of food irradiation and their competence to teach about it. These teachers had a moderate knowledge base regarding food irradiation. Teachers' attitudes regarding the safety of food irradiation were positively correlated with their perceived understanding of food irradiation, actual knowledge of it, and competence to teach about it. Their perceived understanding of food irradiation was positively correlated with competence to teach about it, knowledge, and attitudes toward the safety of food irradiation. The only demographic variable correlated with knowledge or attitudes was teachers' previous food irradiation educational experiences. These data suggest the importance of education for family and consumer sciences teachers concerning food irradiation.     

Adolescents earlier diagnosed as dyslexic show major IQ declines on the WISC-III

Adolescents (n=43) previously diagnosed as dyslexic/reading disabled had markedly lower IQ scores on the newly standardized Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC-III) than on the earlier administered WISC-R. The declines for Verbal, Performance, and Full Scale IQs were 10, 12, and 11 points, respectively, which were twice as great as in a subset of the standardization sample given both versions of the WISC. The adolescents did not show a significant decline in standard scores from the Wide Range Achievement Test (Level I to Level II). However, only two subjects had current reading and spelling standard scores above the 25th percentile. The impact of lower WISC-III IQs on guidelines for classification of students as learning disabled is discussed.     

A symplectic eigensolution method in transversely isotropic piezoelectric cylindrical media

INTRODUCTION Since the phenomenon of piezoelectricity in natural crystals was discovered in 1880, it has been applied in many fields, such as smart structure, sensing devices and active control, because of its special properties. Combining electrical behavior with mechanical deformation is the special property which attracted great interest of researchers. Many models have been developed for studying piezoelec- tric effects. Dunn and Wienecke (1996) used Green’s functions for transverse…