Translating quality in higher education: US approaches to accreditation of institutions from around the world

This article reports on findings from a sociolinguistic qualitative study exploring inter-discursive relations manifested in the approaches and strategies that regional accrediting agencies in the United States utilise when recognising foreign universities. Even as most countries have developed national quality assurance systems and whilst international rankings comparing institutions globally are available, a growing number of universities around the world seek recognition from American regional agencies. By comparing policy statements, manuals, guidelines and other documents, and after interviewing top-level officers at US accrediting agencies, this study makes explicit the assumptions and central discourses associated with US accreditation of non-US institutions of higher education, from the accreditors’ perspective. Following constant comparison and cultural critical discourse analysis, the study reveals concerns about the equivalency of quality, emphasis on capacity building and reluctance toward adapting US standards. An interest in building international partnerships, in order to respond to globalisation, is also identified.     

Gender differences in adolescents’ choice of heroes and admired adults in five countries

Seven hundred and sixty-eight adolescents from five countries and regions (USA, Spain, Hong Kong, Qatar, and Malaysia), aged 13–19 (M?=?15.78; SD?=?1.28) years, responded to a questionnaire designed to determine who was their most admired famous adult or hero. Male heroes clearly outnumbered admired females (73.3% vs. 26.7%). There was a pattern of same-sex choices, but it was more likely for girls to choose male heroes than for boys to choose females. Over half of the admired adults were athletes, and movie, television, and music stars. Regarding the personally known adults, there was a more balanced choice of males and females, with parents as the most frequent choice. Results suggest that society continues to fail in providing an adequate supply of female role models.     

Suprasegmental Phonology Development and Reading Acquisition: A Longitudinal Study

Previous studies implicate suprasegmental phonology in reading acquisition. However, little is known about how suprasegmental sensitivity develops or how it contributes to reading. Here, 130 Spanish primary-school children participated in this 2-year longitudinal study. Nonlinguistic rhythm, lexical-stress sensitivity and metrical-stress sensitivity, along with phonological awareness, vocabulary, nonverbal intelligence, and reading aloud, were assessed on five occasions. Results suggest that prosody abilities have different developmental trajectories and that prosody explains unique variance in reading beyond that explained by other factors. There was some evidence that the contribution of each prosody skill occurred at different phases in reading development. Nonlinguistic rhythm, lexical-stress sensitivity, and metrical-stress sensitivity assessed at the end of kindergarten, the start of Grade 1, and the end of Grade 1, respectively, predicted reading performance 6 months later. Nevertheless, sample size and reliability temper the conclusions that can be made. The implications of prosody skills for literacy development are discussed.     

Leaders learning from leaders as an emergent action learning strategy

This account of practice describes what three executive leaders in a professional association have learned about action learning and their own practices of organizational renewal. Data are approached narratively and stories are told from the perspectives of diverse educators’ experiences, agency, and expertise. Mature organizations can be revitalized and diversified through the action learning of executive leaders who integrate a new and diverse faculty body into the governance structure and decision-making process. The goal of facilitating diversity goals for established organizations has relevance for universities, schools, businesses, and other learning environments. Public conversations can strengthen the diversity-oriented outreach missions of professional organizations.     

Antiracism defined as equitable sociocultural interactions in prekindergarten: Classroom racial composition makes a difference

This study used secondary data from the My Teaching Partner-Math/Science 2013–2016 randomized control trial to explore whether equitable sociocultural classroom interactions (see Curenton et al., 2019) were associated with the skills of 105 four- and five-year-olds (52% boys; drawn from 20 unique video recordings of preschool teachers/classrooms; 43% were Black, Latine, Asian, or other racially marginalized learners). Equitable interactions predicted children's skills with effect sizes ranging from small (0.01–0.44) to large (1.00). Moderation analyses revealed that when classrooms had more racially marginalized learners, teachers’ use of equitable disciplinary and personalized learning practices were associated with higher executive functioning gains across prekindergarten. Findings illustrate how classroom composition can be a key indicator between equitable classroom interactions and young children's early skills.     

Knocking on employment’s door: internships and job attainment

Higher Education - Undergraduate internships have gained popularity among students, universities, governments and firms since the creation of the European Higher Education Area. However, empirical...     

University students’ strategies and criteria during self-assessment: instructor’s feedback,rubrics, and year level effects

European Journal of Psychology of Education - This study explores the effects of feedback type, feedback occasion, and year level on student self-assessments in higher education. In total, 126...     

Evaluating the feasibility of remotely administered curriculum-based measurement for students with autism: A pilot study

Students with autism may struggle to develop the academic skills necessary for success in school and beyond. Understanding and improving academic skills performance requires appropriate measurement approaches. One such option that has been minimally studied with students with autism is curriculum-based measurement (CBM). Coinciding with the need to study different approaches to academic skills measurement for students with autism was the global pandemic which forced a shift to remote service delivery with little warning. While some autistic students struggled with this shift, others thrived, raising questions about how to further support students with autism in virtual formats. The purpose of this study was to examine the feasibility of using remotely administered CBM for autistic students by studying both the practicality and acceptability of this approach. Five students with autism (Grades 2–5) participated in this pilot study, completing reading, math, and writing CBMs at three time points. Student behavior and assessor fidelity were collected to examine practicality; assessor ratings of usability provided insight regarding the acceptability of the approach. Results indicated that remotely administered CBM is feasible for some students with autism: all participants completed the study tasks with minimal behavioral difficulties, and assessor ratings of acceptability were high.     

Inducing chemotactic and haptotactic cues in microfluidic devices for three-dimensional in vitro assays

Microfluidic devices allow for the production of physiologically relevant cellular microenvironments by including biomimetic hydrogels and generating controlled chemical gradients. During transport, the biomolecules interact in distinct ways with the fibrillar networks: as purely diffusive factors in the soluble fluid or bound to the matrix proteins. These two main mechanisms may regulate distinct cell responses in order to guide their directional migration: caused by the substrate-bound chemoattractant gradient (haptotaxis) or by the gradient established within the soluble fluid (chemotaxis). In this work 3D diffusion experiments, in combination with ELISA assays, are performed using microfluidic platforms in order to quantify the distribution of PDGF-BB and TGF-β₁ across collagen and fibrin gels. Furthermore, to gain a deeper understanding of the fundamental processes, the experiments are reproduced by computer simulations based on a reaction-diffusion transport model. This model yields an accurate prediction of the experimental results, confirming that diffusion and binding phenomena are established within the microdevice.