INFLUENCE OF ASCRIBED AND ACHIEVED SOCIAL STATUSES,VALUES, AND REWARDS ON JOB SATISFACTION AMONG COMMUNITY COLLEGE FACULTY

Research on job satisfaction among community college faculty has been largely atheoretical. The present study examined the contribution of four sets of factors to explaining faculty job satisfaction in the community college. According to Kalleberg's (1977) theory of job satisfaction, employee's affective reactions to their jobs are largely determined by ascribed social statuses, achieved social statuses, job values, and job rewards. A random sample was drawn of 371 full‐time faculty from a multi‐campus community college district located in a metropolitan area in the Southwest. Nonresponses and partial responses resulted in an effective sample size of 261. A correlation analysis revealed that institutional age and physical safety job value were significantly, inversely related to job satisfaction and that all job rewards were significantly, positively related to job satisfaction. A simultaneous multiple regression analysis indicated that institutional age was a significant, inverse predictor of job satisfaction and that chronological age, and the good supervision and work itself job rewards were significant, positive predictors of job satisfaction. Of the variation in job satisfaction scores accounted for by all predictors, approximately 5% may be attributed to ascribed and achieved social statuses and to job values, and 48% to job rewards. For faculty in the district we surveyed, the keys to promoting job satisfaction would be to enhance the satisfying aspects of the work itself and good supervision. Programs which afford faculty who are less than satisfied with their jobs opportunities to be “origins” rather than “pawns” may be beneficial.     

Transfer Student Success: Exploring Community College,University, and Individual Predictors

ABSTRACT

This paper investigates community college transfer success by exploring the relationship between individual and institutional-level characteristics at students’ two- and four-year institutions. Using statewide administrative data from North Carolina, this study employs a cross-classified multilevel model to investigate the impact that a student’s community college and four-year transfer institution have on post-transfer success. Our findings offer important and compelling insights into the relationship between transfer students, the community college they attended, the four-year transfer institution, and educational outcomes. While individual effects were small, we find several institutional factors associated with student success. Attendance at a large community college or having a public university in the same county as their community college is positively associated with student success, whereas size of the university is negatively related to grades during the first year and persistence to the second year. While the four-year institution’s selectivity is negatively related to many of our outcomes, transferring to a Historically Black College or University is positively associated with GPA, college persistence, and degree completion.     

The Growth of Phonological Awareness by Children With Reading Disabilities: A Result of Semantic Knowledge or Knowledge of Grapheme-Phoneme Correspondences?

According to the Lexical Restructuring Model (Metsala & Walley, 1998 Metsala, J. L. and Walley, A. C. 1998. “Spoken vocabulary growth and the segmental restructuring of lexical representation: Precursors to phonemic awareness and early reading ability”. In Word recognition in beginning literacy, Edited by: Metsala, J. L. and Ehri, L. C. 89–120. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.  [Google Scholar]), children move from holistic representations of words, to syllabic representations, and finally to phonemic representations through a restructuring process driven by their developing lexical base. In contrast, the psycholinguistic grain size theory put forth by Ziegler and Goswami (2005) Ziegler, J. C. and Goswami, U. 2005. Reading acquisition, developmental dyslexia, and skilled reading across languages: A psycholinguistic grain size theory.. Psychological Bulletin, 131: 3–29. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar] suggests that the awareness of individual phonemes is not possible without direct literacy instruction. The purpose of this study was to examine whether semantic knowledge and/or knowledge of grapheme/phoneme correspondences influenced the acquisition of word-blending skills by a sample of children with a reading disability. Participants were 211 second-grade and third-grade students from public elementary schools who were assigned to a reading intervention. Hierarchical Linear Modeling techniques were used to model individual growth curves of word-blending skills. Overall, findings support the psycholinguistic grain size theory of reading and suggest that instruction in the relationship between orthographic patterns and their corresponding sounds is necessary for the development of phonological awareness.     

The Impact of Gatekeeper Training for Suicide Prevention on University Resident Assistants

Resident assistants (RAs) can serve as important suicide prevention gatekeepers. The purpose of the study was to determine if training improved RAs’ crisis communications skills and suicide‐related knowledge and to determine if the knowledge elements predicted crisis communications skills. New RAs showed significant improvement in all areas from pretest to posttest, whereas returning RAs showed no significant increase in any of the areas. None of the knowledge areas predicted communications skills for either group.     

基于平板电脑的电子课本在香港英语课堂教学实施的个案研究

随着科技的快速发展,基于平板电脑的电子课本以其独特的优势,被视为电子学习新的形式和体现,被越来越多地应用于课堂教学中。它的教与学效果如何?是否真正促进了课堂教学?是否真正提高了学生的学习兴趣、学习效果?这些问题有待研究。本案例来自香港教育局支持的实验计划,课程根据香港课程发展议会颁发的英文课程指南进行设计。实证研究主要采用课堂观察、问卷课查法对学生的学习方法和观感进行分析。研究发现:电子课本在电子教材设计、学生学习兴趣和动机、学生知识与技能获得、学生深层学习方法及课堂参与度等方面都起到了明显的促进作用,其在课堂教学中的应用有着良好的发展前景,有望在内容和功能上整合现有课堂中的一些电子教具,最大化地发挥优势,为新的课堂学习环境提供新的学习支持。     

Metaphorical and Non-Metaphorical Meaning in Ideological Discourses: an Examination of Technocratic Discourses and Counter-Discourses from the Progressive Era

Two contrasting visions of ideological discourse populate sociological treatments of culture. In the work of the British social theorist Margaret Archer, we find a conception of ideological discourse as essentially dialectical and reliant on logically compelling argument. In American sociology of culture, conversely, we find an implicit understanding of ideological discourse as a ‘performative’ mode of discourse built around emotionally resonant symbols, image, and metaphors. If we take either of these categorical conceptualisations of ideological discourse seriously, then the only discourses which can qualify as ideological are those discourses which are either fully metaphorical or entirely dialectical. In fact, many ideological discourses make use of imagery and metaphors and at the same time feature propositions meant to be interpreted as part of a logically compelling argument. As the paper demonstrates through a detailed examination of the discourses produced by the American technocrats of the 1920s and 1930s, elaborate ideological productions often include both metaphorical propositions and logically compelling argument. Moreover, metaphorical constructions and literal propositions often function as complements in effective ideological discourses. This is especially true when the discourses are addressed to knowledgeable and economically privileged audiences, such as the ‘new class’ of the pre-depression United States.     

The Digital Humanities Summer Scholarship: A model for library-led undergraduate digital scholarship

ABSTRACT

The article offers a model for library-centered undergraduate engagement with digital scholarship based on two years of successful implementation at Lafayette College. Librarians designed a competitive six-week summer internship where undergraduate students built their own digital research projects. Through their original projects, students practiced traditional research methods and simultaneously explored subfields of digital scholarship. The article's topics include the relationship between digital scholarship and information literacy, the library's role in facilitating digital scholarship, and the internship's design and execution. The article also includes reflections and recommendations for sustainable implementation.