Reshaping academic capitalism to meet development priorities: the case of public universities in Kenya

As colleges and universities have adopted a corporate model in recent decades, debate over the public versus private good associated with higher education has surged. The deliberations have typically been entrenched in Western notions about academia’s contributions to development and scholars have framed academic capitalism dichotomously; a force for good or evil. Far less is known about the market model of higher education in developing nations. We sought to explore this gap by examining how faculty and staff at two public universities in Africa view the intersection of marketization and development.     

Re-victimization patterns in a national longitudinal sample of children and youth

OBJECTIVE: To understand to the degree to which a broad variety of victimizations, including child maltreatment, conventional crime, peer, and sexual victimizations, persist for children from 1 year to the next. DESIGN: A national sample of 1467 children aged 2-17 recruited through random digit dialing and assessed via telephone interviews (with caretakers and youth themselves) about a comprehensive range of victimization experiences in the previous year, and then re-assessed (72.3% of baseline sample) after a 1-year interval. RESULTS: The risk for re-victimization in Year 2 was high for children victimized in Year 1, with risk ratios ranging from 2.2 for physical assault to 6.9 for sexual victimization. Victimization of any one type left substantial vulnerability even for different types of subsequent re-victimization (e.g., property crime victimization was associated with higher risk of sexual victimization the next year). Children with four or more types of victimization in Year 1 ("poly-victims") were at particularly high risk of persisting poly-victimization. Persisting poly-victimization was more likely for children who scored high on anger/aggression and who had recent life adversities. Desistence from poly-victimization was associated with having more good friends. Onset of poly-victimization in Year 2, in contrast to persistence from Year 1, was associated with violent or maltreating families, family problems such as alcohol abuse, imprisonment, unemployment and family disruption. Having more older siblings acted as both a risk factor and a protective factor for different groups of youth. CONCLUSION: Children previously victimized in 1 year are at higher risk of continued victimization, and the poly-victims are at particular risk. These findings suggest the potential merit of identifying these high-risk children and making them priority targets for prevention efforts.     

Kid's stuff: the nature and impact of peer and sibling violence on younger and older children

OBJECTIVE: It is widely presumed that when children are hit by peers or siblings, it is not as serious as similar acts between adults or older youth, which would be termed, "assaults" and "violent crimes". The goal of this study was to compare the violent peer and sibling episodes of younger children to those of older youth in terms of their seriousness and association with symptoms that might indicate traumatic effects. METHOD: The study collected reports of past year's violent victimizations and childhood symptoms in a national probability telephone sample of 2030 children and youth ages 2-17. The experiences of 10-17-year olds were obtained via self-reports and those of the 2-9-year olds from caregivers. RESULTS: The younger children's peer and sibling victimizations were not less serious than the older youth on the dimensions of injury, being hit with an object that could cause injury or being victimized on multiple occasions. Younger children and older youth also had similar trauma symptom levels associated with both peer and sibling victimization. CONCLUSION: There was no basis in this study for presuming peer and sibling victimizations to be more benign when they involve younger children. The findings provide justification for being concerned about such peer and sibling violence in schools and families and for counting such victimizations in victimization inventories and clinical assessments.     

Re-conceptualizing Emotion and Motivation to Learn in Classroom Contexts

To better inform and improve classroom teaching and learning, now more than ever before, educational researchers need to effectively and efficiently describe essential components of positive learning environments. In this article, we discuss how our research findings about motivation in classrooms have led to a closer examination of emotions. We describe how motivation theories such as Academic Risk Taking, Flow Theory, and Goal Theory have helped us better understand emotions in our classroom research. Our findings suggest that engaging students in learning requires consistently positive emotional experiences, which contribute to a classroom climate that forms the foundation for teacher–student relationships and interactions necessary for motivation to learn. We conclude that we need to integrate emotion, motivation, and cognition theoretically and methodologically to move our research forward. New theories and methods, even new forms of intellectual discourse, are required. Therefore, we end this article by beginning a discussion of new directions for conceptualizing and researching classrooms in ways that will involve examining the emotions of students and teachers.

Are assessment environments gendered? An analysis of the learning responses of male and female students to different assessment environments

There is considerable variation between male and female Bachelor degree performance at Oxford and Cambridge (Oxbridge) where male students attain more First and Third Class degrees and female students attain more Second Class degrees. Various hypotheses have been put forward to explain this phenomenon including the possibility that the distinctive Oxbridge assessment environment, very different from those at both pre‐ and post‐92 universities, might account for the difference. Data from the Assessment Experience Questionnaire (AEQ; Oxbridge, pre‐ and post‐92 universities, one science, one humanities and one applied social science subject from each) were analysed to determine gendered perceptions of the assessment environment. Significant gender differences were found on five AEQ scales (Quantity of effort, Coverage of syllabus, Quantity and quality of feedback, Use of feedback and Appropriate assessment) but there was no significant interaction between gender and university. Consequently, there were few clues in students' responses to confirm that the Oxbridge assessment environment explains gendered differences in degree performance.     

Comparison of efficiency measures for academic interventions based on acquisition and maintenance

Previous research has demonstrated the importance of examining the instructional efficiency of academic interventions and has defined efficiency as the number of items learned per instructional minute. Maintenance of the skill is also an important instructional goal, however. Therefore, the current study compared efficiency metrics using initial learning and maintenance with 25 fourth‐grade students. Each student was taught the pronunciation and English translation of 12 words from the Esperanto international language with two instructional conditions (six words for each condition). The first condition was traditional drill (TD) rehearsal with all unknown words, and the second was incremental rehearsal (IR) with one unknown and eight known words. Results indicated that, although the IR condition led to significantly more words being retained, TD was significantly more efficient using initial learning. The two conditions were equally efficient, however, when maintenance data were used. Therefore, evaluating the efficiency of instructional interventions should consider maintenance data as well. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Altitude training in endurance running: perceptions of elite athletes and support staff

This study sought to establish perceptions of elite endurance athletes on the role and worth of altitude training. Elite British endurance runners were surveyed to identify the altitude and hypoxic training methods utilised, along with reasons for use, and any situational, cultural and behaviour factors influencing these. Prior to the 2012 Olympics Games, 39 athletes and 20 support staff (coaches/practitioners) completed an internet-based survey to establish differences between current practices and the accepted “best-practice”. Almost all of the athletes (98%) and support staff (95%) surveyed had utilised altitude and hypoxic training, or had advised it to athletes. 75% of athletes believed altitude and hypoxia to be a “very important” factor in their training regime, with 50% of support staff believing the same. Athletes and support staff were in agreement of the methods of altitude training utilised (i.e. 'hypoxic dose’ and strategy), with camps lasting 3–4 weeks at 1,500–2,500 m being the most popular. Athletes and support staff are utilising altitude and hypoxic training methods in a manner agreeing with research-based suggestions. The survey identified a number of specific challenges and priorities, which could provide scope to optimise future altitude training methods for endurance performance in these elite groups.