CACREP's Relevance to Professionalism for School Counselor Educators

Archival data from 1994 to 2003 were used to examine the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Program's (CACREP) association with professionalism for school counselor educators. Indicators of professionalism included school counselor educators' contributions to the profession (i.e., journal publications and conference presentations), leadership in professional organizations, and pursuit of counseling credentials. Data analysis revealed weak (small effect sizes), yet statistically significant, relationships between CACREP accreditation and indicators of professionalism for school counselor educators.     

Reinvigorating adolescent sexuality education through alternate reality games: the case of The Source

This paper presents findings from a focus group study conducted to evaluate The Source, an alternate reality game (ARG). ARGs are a relatively new genre of interactive digital games that use a variety of media to engage game players. We developed modules on sexual health, sexual orientation, and homophobia in a game that was delivered to 133 predominantly African-American and Latino US youth. Ten focus groups were conducted with 43 young people aged 13–18 who played The Source to understand feasibility and acceptability issues and the impact of the game on young people’s attitudes, knowledge, and behaviours. Data were transcribed and analysed for common themes by two independent coders. Four primary themes were identified: (1) the feasibility and acceptability of using an ARG for sexual education; (2) the acceptability of The Source’s specific sexual health content; (3) the game’s influence on sexual health-related knowledge, attitudes, and behaviours; and (4) the impact of the game on young people’s thoughts and responses to sexual orientation and homophobia. Study findings indicate that an ARG is an exciting and interactive way to educate young people on sensitive topics in sexuality education, but that attention to narrative authenticity and effective messaging are important issues to address.     

The impact of compensation,supervision and work design on internship efficacy: implications for educators,employers and prospective interns

Internships are a growing, yet controversial, labour market phenomenon. In particular, the issue of unpaid internships has been the source of legislative, judicial and ethical debate. Some have criticised colleges and universities for promoting an expansion of internships for undergraduate students – with little regard for internship characteristics such as compensation, quality of supervision and work activities. Meanwhile, there is a paucity of research examining the role internship characteristics, such as compensation, supervisor behaviours and work design have on internship efficacy. Based on a survey of undergraduate students in the US, the results showed that supervisor mentoring, the developmental value of the internship and the job pursuit intentions of the intern with the host employer were lower for those reporting on their unpaid internship vs. paid internship. Meanwhile, supervisor support and supervisor mentoring are significant predictors of internship efficacy regardless of internship compensation, while work design has much less of an impact on internship efficacy. The implications of the findings for educators, employers and prospective interns are highlighted.     

Exploration and confirmation of a reflective-thinking scale to measure transformative learning in online courses

Responding to the ubiquity of information and the corresponding need to filter and make sense of it, transformative learning is increasingly being used to frame learning experiences in higher education. While several instruments have been developed to measure transformative learning in educational settings, little work has been done towards an understanding of transformative learning measurement in online environments. This study was conducted over two phases, an initial exploration of a reflective thinking questionnaire with students in an online MBA program of a higher education institution in the mid-Atlantic region of U.S., followed by a confirmatory phase of a refined, three-factor instrument in the same context. This study demonstrated the improved fit and overall interpretability of the three-factor instrument. The measurement invariance of the factor structure has also been examined with a set of covariates.     

Roommate Effects on Grades: Evidence from First-Year Housing Assignments

This paper estimates the effect of students’ background characteristics on the academic outcomes of their college roommates. It uses data from four classes of students at Wellesley College, where roommate assignment is credibly random, conditional on student responses to a housing preference form. In linear specifications, there are no peer effects on students’ grade point averages. There is some evidence that students’ SAT scores have nonlinear effect on their roommates’ achievement, but the results are not robust. We conclude that roommate peer effects might exist among small groups of students, but they are not a key determinant of students’ average academic outcomes at Wellesley College.     

Informal faculty-student contact and commuter college freshmen

Based on prior research conducted at residential colleges and universities, nonclassroom informal faculty-student contact appears to be an element of student socialization. This study extends this line of research to a commuter student population. The extent to which informal contact socializes students by influencing their educational aspiration level in a commuter setting is investigated using a longitudinal data collection with the student as unit of analysis. Ordinary least squares and two-stage least squares techniques are used to analyze the data. Significant interactions between informal faculty-student contact and race were found. White and nonwhite students were sbusequently analyzed separately. The ordinary least squares (OLS) multiple regression results suggest that informal contact makes a slight but significant contribution to the explanation of freshmen aspirations for whites, but not for nonwhites. The two-stage least squares (2SLS) analysis suggests that the assumption that contact influences aspiration may not be valid and, indeed, that aspiration level may cause students to seek to initiate informal contact with faculty.     

The long and winding road: A grounded theory of reminiscence among Filipino residents in nursing homes

Although reminiscence is a naturally occurring process in late adulthood, not all older adults reminisce effectively. Notably, feelings of guilt, loneliness, bitterness and regret lead to despair and remorse rather than integrity. In spite of this, little is known about the process of reminiscence among Filipino older adults. This grounded study aims to develop a model that describes how a select group of older Filipino patients residing in nursing homes in the Philippines experience reminiscence.

Strauss and Corbin’s (1990) grounded theory design was employed in this study. A total of eighteen (18) Filipino older adults in nursing homes were purposively selected to participate in one-on-one, semi-structured interviews. These were then transcribed into field texts and analyzed through open, axial and selective coding. Member checking procedure was employed to ensure that the emerged themes were sensible and consistent with the participants’ lived experiences.

Through constant comparative method, the findings of this study presented the development of a three-phase process (Reactivating, Reconstructing and Reframing) that describes the reminiscence experiences of a select group of Filipino nursing home residents. The emergent theoretical model invites nurses as quality care providers to renew and restructure interventions to promote effective reminiscence.     

重围之下的大学——当代学术领域中的信任和责任制

本文探索发生在欧洲高等教育中的变革:从冯堡的大学理念转变为在准市场压力下操作的大学模式。虽然促进了大学中的责任制,但是,与大学的资助制度和相关“使命”上的变化相联系的这种发展,是与传统信任机制的被侵蚀联系在一起的。本文主要从英国的经验出发,这种经验现已在国际上得到延伸和拓展,思考目前可能存在于英国和欧洲大学中的制度变革和问题的教训。     

Gamification and student motivation

The literature suggests that gamified learning interventions may increase student engagement and enhance learning. We empirically investigate this by exploring the impact of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation on the participation and performance of over 100 undergraduate students in an online gamified learning intervention. The paper makes a number of contributions. First, by synthesizing the literature the central concepts required for a learning intervention to be considered gamified are mapped and the development of an online gamified learning intervention is described. Second, the effect of gamification on learning outcomes is examined using a pre- and post-intervention survey. We find that gamified learning interventions have a positive impact on student learning. Third, our results show that while generally positive, the impact of gamified intervention*ns on student participation varies depending on whether the student is motivated intrinsically or extrinsically. These findings will be of practical interest to teaching and learning practitioners working in a range of educational contexts, and at all levels of education, who wish to increase student engagement and enhance learning.