College attrition and the financial support systems of students

Five groups of undergraduate students, dropouts (academic dismissals), low (GPA) stopouts, high (GPA) stopouts, low (GPA) persisters, and high (GPA) persisters were compared in terms of their responses to a checklist of financial sources of support. Clear sex differences were observed in the reliance on financial sources, either singly or in terms of total sources utilized. Differences related to year in school were also observed. The most significant finding related to attrition was that persisters relied on more sources of support than did withdrawers. This outcome was interpreted in terms of differences between persisters and withdrawers in motivational and personality characteristics that promote the seeking and securing of sources of support.     

Long-range course planning by college students

A group of 633 college students at a large midwestern public university was asked fifteen questions pertaining to personal long-term course planning. The results indicated that only 48% of the students sketched out a tentative listing of at least two courses per term for one or more subsequent semesters when first planning courses for the current semester. Long-range planning was positively correlated with the number of years students had already spent in college and with students' perception of the following factors: course planning utility, degree of certainty about pursuing one's current first choice of career, and degree of commitment in using college coursework as a means of achieving a career goal (all p < 0.001). Long-range planning was negatively correlated with the anticipation of a possible change in academic interests. Such planning was not significantly correlated with students' entrance examination aptitude scores or grade point averages. Thus, students' long-range planning of courses was associated more strongly with career commitment than with recent academic performance or aptitude.     

Consultants and Coteachers Affecting Student Outcomes with Numbered Heads Together: Keeping All Engaged

General education teachers, special education teachers, social workers, psychologists, and a myriad of specialists are responsible for delivering content to all students within inclusive environments. These educational teams continue to search for strategies that can be recommended or used in an inclusive environment. Researchers have discovered that an instructional strategy such as Numbered Heads Together (NHT) increases both academic and behavioral outcomes for students with and without disabilities. This article provides consultants, Response to Intervention (RtI) team members, and coteaching teams with a specific strategy of NHT that can be used by two or more professionals to develop lessons or deliver instruction using a coteaching or consultant approach with both professionals (consultant and general education teacher) assessing learner outcomes after the completion of the activity.     

Academic Freedom: Constitutional Myths and Practical Realities

Academic Freedom is a sacrosanct value on American university campuses. Virtually all research institutions, public and private, have explicitly adopted some form of the American Association of University Professors’ 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure or the organization’s the 1915 Declaration of Principles on Academic Freedom & Tenure. Because of the near universal acceptance of the principle of academic freedom, there is a common belief that the United States Constitution recognizes academic freedom and, more importantly, confers “special rights” on the persons and institutions of academia. Yet, despite its almost universal acceptance by faculty and administrators and despite its constant use as a constitutional theory whenever faculty and/or administrators dislike a government program, academic freedom is a constitutional myth. The rights of individual academics or of academic institutions are no greater than the rights of individual non-academics or of non-academic agencies or institutions. Put another way, from a constitutional standpoint, there is nothing special about the academic setting. Academic Freedom is no greater, and no lesser, than the constitutional rights of non-academics or ordinary state agencies. Nevertheless, academic freedom must be respected as a practical reality. There are important public policy reasons why university professors should have wide latitude in their research, writing, and teaching efforts. At the same time, institutions should be given a large amount of discretion in determining the scope of their missions. In other words, while academic freedom is not a federal constitutional value, it should be an important public policy consideration and, perhaps, even a state constitutional value. The purpose of this Article is twofold. First, it seeks to demonstrate that academic freedom is a constitutional myth. Institutional academic freedom, the idea that institutions of higher education have a federal constitutional right to be free from outside control, is simply incompatible with constitutional realities. Moreover, professors do not have an individual constitutional right to academic freedom. In short, the rights of professors and the institutions that employ them are no greater than the rights of non-academic employees and non-academic organizations. Second, it attempts to explain why respect for academic freedom is a practical reality.     

From school to higher education in Australia

This paper addresses the question of why young people go on from school to higher education in Australia. A person-situation interactionist theory to explain decisions taken in the matter is developed, and in the light of this theory a model to predict entry to higher education is advanced. The model is tested using data from separate studies in two Australian States, Victoria and Queensland. Results of bivariate and logistic regression analyses are generally consistent with expectations from the model. Certain interactive effects of variables in the model upon entry to higher education are reported.     

Relative preferences for various bivalued ratio schedules

Widely cited experiments on optimal foraging have used bivalued distributions as representing environmental stochasticity, characterizing these in terms of their arithmetic means. In contrast, research on free-operant choice has established that organisms prefer variable patterns of food delivery, relative to fixed patterns with the same mean values. To explore such departures from linear averaging, specifically with respect to bivalued alternatives, pigeons were given choices between a fixed-ratio (FR) schedule of food delivery that required 15, 30, or 60 responses and bivalued variable-ratio schedules with an arithmetic mean of 60,5 or 60, A bivalued schedule of 1 and 120 was preferred almost exclusively over each of the FR values. With a bivalued schedule of 15 and 105, there was a shift of preference, most notably in the FR-15 condition, but in no case was linear averaging a good predictor of the birds’ choices. Geometric averaging fared better, but even this failed to represent the apparent salience of the minimum value of the bivalued schedule in some conditions.     

Map Perspective and the Learning of Text

In two studies, undergraduates learned a map of the city of Rome in either a flat survey map or a one-point perspective format. The perspective map lead to greater feature recall in the first study and to better memory for a related text when features were correctly located in the second study. Both studies suggest that map scanning patterns may differ depending on the learner′s point of view.     

Groundwater scarcity impact on inclusiveness and women empowerment: Insights from school absenteeism of female students in two watersheds in India

A survey was conducted in eight secondary schools located in two watersheds in Gujarat and Rajasthan (semi-arid region of India) to assess students’ perceptions about groundwater scarcity issues and the impact of the scarcity on their educational opportunities. Survey responses to a detailed questionnaire by a cohort of students in both watersheds; school attendance records of year 8 class students (13–14 years old) and responses gathered via a socio-economic survey involving 500 families in the study area were used in the study. In both watersheds, >90% students identified groundwater scarcity as a major issue. Required to work at home or farm, about 65% students in Gujarat and 60% in Rajasthan missed school for up to 2 days/month; and a smaller proportion (～ 30%) missed schools for 4 or more days/month. School absenteeism was found to be linked with gender; female students missed schools more frequently than their male counterpart. The school attendance records in Rajasthan showed that the frequency of female students missing schools for 5 or more days/month was on an average 2–10 times greater than that for males. The gender difference in absenteeism in all schools was statistically significant (P?<?.018**). The study highlighted that groundwater scarcity in the study area, and consequent demand on their time for household work including fetching drinking water are contributing factors towards limiting their educational and economic opportunities. Groundwater scarcity can be one of the key factors that can limit inclusiveness and empowerment of women and need to be considered in policy-making.     

Learning from wildlife-inspired awe

Abstract

This study sought to explore the implications for individuals who experienced awe while in the presence of wildlife. A conceptual framework was adapted that integrated the theory of emotional learning with experiential learning theory. In-depth interviews brought into focus the resultant learning stemming from experiences of wildlife-inspired awe. Learning manifested through pro-environmental and prosocial behaviors in which participants’ career choices were affected as well as their advocacy for pro-environmental behaviors within their community of friends and family. In the process of chronicling participants’ stories, we developed a better understanding of the ways in which people make sense of and ultimately learn from experiences of wildlife-inspired awe.