International doctorates: trends analysis on their decision to stay in US

Despite the significant implications of the foreign doctorates’ stay or return decision on a personal level, as well as for the home and host countries, there is very little research that provides a comprehensive understanding of the factors that predict international doctorates’ decision to stay in the US and how those factors differ by country of origin or field of study. In addition, the patterns of stay (versus return) and the factors influencing those decisions may have changed over time, partly due to the changes in the immigration policies of the US and in economic development or national policy of home countries. Therefore, this study examines the patterns of international doctorates’ stay versus return decision from a historical perspective across the period of the 1980, 1990, and 2000s. Using data from the Survey of Earned Doctorates (SED), collected in the US, this study enables us to move beyond a static understanding of the relative stay rates by country to an examination of how country-specific changes, such as shifts in economic development or national policy (push/pull factors), may relate to shifts in the stay versus return decision with a particular emphasis on the field specific effects.     

The Bioinformatics Program at Washington University's Bernard Becker Medical Library: making it happen

The need for a Bioinformatics Program became apparent after repeated requests from researchers for bioinformatics resources and the University's announcement of BioMed 21, a 300 million dollars biomedical science initiative to bring "new knowledge of the human genetic blueprint to the patient's bedside and change how illnesses are understood, diagnosed, and successfully treated." A Bioinformatics Specialist with a strong background in the fields of Molecular Biology and Biostatistics was hired. Program development started in 2003. Initially, three core courses were developed: Sequence Similarity Search, Genetic Variation, and Human Genome Resources. Each of these courses was offered twice per semester. Additionally, partnerships were established within the University Medical School Community (e.g., the Genome Sequencing Center) to license and teach Spotfire's DecisionSite for Functional Genomics, a software package used to analyze microarray data. From March to May 2005, seven Spotfire classes were taught. Each Spotfire class consisted of seven hours of classroom work. Also, in-depth consultations were scheduled with faculty and researchers to address their specific needs. These consultations led to requests for other software packages to purchase and manage, including Lasergene and CSD (Cambridge Crystal Structure Database). Efforts to reach outside of the University Community were made through the development of a Bioinformatics Web site.     

A Cross-Cultural Test of Implicit Theories of Re-requesting

Extant U.S. research shows that when a persuader’s initial message is rebuffed, the next requesting message will tend to be ruder and more aggressive than the initial appeal. The robustness of these results has rarely been tested cross-culturally. Using conversational constraints theory, we further explicate implicit theories by investigating the perceived importance of constraints of re-requesting styles across two cultural-linguistic groups (i.e., Korean and American English speakers). Consistent with the “rebuff phenomenon,” results revealed that people rated the task constraint (“clarity”) as significantly more important, and the three face-related constraints (“concern for the other’s feelings,” “minimizing imposition,” and “avoiding negative evaluation”) as significantly less important for the second-attempt requesting than for the initial requesting. Some of these tendencies were more pronounced among American English speakers than among Korean speakers.     

De/colonizing methodologies in science education: rebraiding research theory–practice–ethics with Indigenous theories and theorists

Cultural Studies of Science Education - The purpose of this article is to differentially engage in the work of thinking with Indigenous theorists and theories with decolonizing science education...     

The Academic Credit Bank System in the Republic of Korea: An effective medium for lifelong learning in higher education?

International Review of Education - Drawing on critical theory for adult education, the authors of this article examine the Academic Credit Bank System (ACBS), an open educational system operating...     

Componential skills of beginning writing: An exploratory study

The present study examined the components of end of kindergarten writing, using data from 242 kindergartners. Specifically of interest was the importance of spelling, letter writing fluency, reading, and word- and syntax-level oral language skills in writing. The results from structural equation modeling revealed that oral language, spelling, and letter writing fluency were positively and uniquely related to writing skill after accounting for reading skills. Reading skill was not uniquely related to writing once oral language, spelling, and letter writing fluency were taken into account. These findings are discussed from a developmental perspective.     

青少年校内闲暇时间身体活动影响因素研究

以初中生为研究对象,选取自我效能、乐趣、主观障碍、社会支持和学校环境等5个反映社会生态模型个体水平、人际水平和组织水平的因素,就其对青少年参与校内闲暇时间身体活动的影响进行分析.结果显示:午饭后身体活动强度(F=3.79,P＜0.05)、持续时间(F=4.03,P＜0.05)和对锻炼的乐趣(F=0.82,P＜0.05)、学校政策与管理(F=10.67,P＜0.05)认知存在显著的性别差异.自我效能(F=3.79,P＜0.05)、过程障碍(F=6.43,P＜0.01)和对运动场地与设施(F=10.95,P＜0.01)的感知存在显著的年级差异.回归分析显示:自我效能(β=0.29,P＜0.05)、老师社会支持(β=0.21,P＜0.05)、学校绿化建设(β=0.13,P＜0.05)对青少年参与校内闲暇时间身体活动的影响具有统计学意义.结论:学校应重视特定时段学生身体活动的组织和管理,尤其是对女生的组织和管理;自我效能、老师社会支持、学校绿化建设是影响青少年参与校内闲暇时间身体活动的主要因素.     

Framing the crisis by one's seat: a comparative study of newspaper frames of the Asiana crash in the USA,Korea, and China

This study compared newspaper frames of the 2013 Asiana Airlines crash in the three countries involved: the USA, Korea, and China. The results revealed distinct patterns of news coverage under the particular influence of national interests. The responsibility frame was the most frequently used, but the attribution of responsibility varied across the three countries. US newspapers overwhelmingly attributed the causation to pilot error, Korean media framed the causation as being open to multiple explanations, and Chinese newspapers were less likely to speculate about causation before the final official conclusion was reached. US and Korean media maintained a negative tone toward each other, while Chinese newspapers took a similar standpoint as the US media but were slightly less negative toward Korea. Further, divergence of news frames used across countries was associated with the different use of sources by different newspapers across countries. In particular, Korean media indicated reluctance to use US officials and a preference to cite alternative sources which offered diverse opinions regarding the attribution of responsibility. Finally, emotions of the crash stories varied by attributions of causation in Korean but not in the other countries’ news reports.     

Closing the Gap: Modeling within-school variance heterogeneity in school effect studies

Effective schools should be superior in both enhancing students’ achievement levels and reducing the gap between high- and low-achieving students in the school. However, the focus has been placed mainly on schools’ achievement levels in most school effect studies. In this article, we focused our attention upon the school-specific achievement dispersion as well as achievement level in determining effective schools. The achievement dispersion in a particular school can be captured by within-school variance in achievement (σ²). Assuming heterogeneous within-school variance across schools in hierarchical modeling, it is possible to identify school factors related to high achievement levels and a small gap between high- and low-achieving students. By analyzing data from the TIMMS-R, we illustrated how to detect variance heterogeneity and how to find a systematic relationship between within-school variance and school practice. In terms of our results, we found that schools with a high achievement level tended to be more homogeneous in achievement dispersion, but even among schools with the same achievement level, schools varied in their achievement dispersion, depending on classroom practices.     

Administrative support and its mediating effect on US public school teachers

This study examined the effect of administrative support on teachers’ job satisfaction and intent to stay in teaching. The study employed a path analysis to the data of regular, full-time, public school teachers from the Schools and Staffing Survey teacher questionnaire. Administrative support was the most significant predictor of teachers’ job satisfaction, while teachers’ job satisfaction was the most significant predictor of teachers’ intent to stay in teaching. It was also confirmed that administrative support mediates the effect of teaching experience, student behavior, and teachers’ satisfaction with their salary on teachers’ job satisfaction and intent to stay in teaching.