Listening to our Students: Understanding the factors that affect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students' academic success

While the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students in higher education in Australia has doubled in recent years, the gap between their attainment and the attainment of other Australians has remained consistent. It is essential to elucidate the factors that promote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students' academic success, not in order to justify the exclusion of these students from tertiary education, but to refine and develop curriculum and management strategies which promote their academic success. This study focuses on Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander students' experiences in a diploma program offered in block mode, in order to better understand the ‘on-’ and ‘off-’ campus experiences which are related to academic success and the factors which challenge or enhance students' study. The research yields important findings related to students' motivations to enrol and their definitions of academic success; the challenges they experience in making the transition to tertiary study; the vulnerability of our students' determination to succeed; the effects of being in a program for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students; and the ways in which minor challenges, if unresolved, can accumulate to interfere with students' study.     

Exploring anomalies in Indigenous student engagement: findings from a national Australian survey of undergraduates

Increases in participation by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students in higher education across Australia continue to be promising. However, it is also known that Indigenous students' attrition, retention and completion rates remain areas of concern. In this paper, we report our findings from an analysis of Indigenous student responses to the 2009 Australasian Survey of Student Engagement. Overall, Indigenous Australian students express positive responses in relation to engagement, but are more likely than non-Indigenous students to be planning to depart. We explore this somewhat unexpected anomaly, whilst also suggesting that much more needs to be known about our Indigenous students, including, for example, whom they may interact with at university; where they turn for support; and why they may decide to leave. Our findings strongly indicate that better national and institutional data are needed to address the current gaps in knowledge relating to Indigenous student populations in Australia and around the world.? In this paper, the term ‘Indigenous’ refers to Australian students who are of self-declared Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander background, while ‘non-Indigenous’ refers to all other Australians.     

The impact of various creative initiatives on wellbeing: a study of children in English primary schools

The following paper builds uon a survey of primary students’ wellbeing in an attempt to assess the impact of various creative initiatives on this aspect of their lives. Three case studies were conducted in schools with some of the highest aggregate wellbeing scores, all three schools having also been engaged in various extended Creative Partnership programmes. Teachers, Creative Practitioners and students were interviewed and observed during both normal lessons and Creative Partnership activities. It is posited that the implementation of creative activities under the framework adopted by Creative Partnership enhances both hedonic and eudaimonic aspects of wellbeing and accords with theories of motivation which stress the value of promoting student competencies and autonomy and creating classroom climates which promote connectedness.     

Changes in children’s anger,sadness, and persistence across blocked goals: Implications for self-regulation

The current study took a person-centered approach to examine the heterogeneity of changes in children’s emotions and persistence during a goal-blocking task and examined how different profiles of emotions and persistence related to children’s self-regulation. Children’s anger, sadness, and persistence were rated in a goal-blocking task in toddlerhood (T1; N = 140, 72 boys, M_age = 2.67 years, 90.7% White) and preschool (T2). Children’s self-regulation, specifically sustained attention and engagement, was assessed at T1, T2, and early school-age (T3) from 2005 to 2012. Growth mixture modeling revealed two classes of children at T1 and three classes at T2 with different patterns of anger, sadness, and persistence. Children’s classification at T2, but not T1, significantly predicted their sustained attention and engagement both concurrently and longitudinally.     

A comparison of the perceptions of Love, Anger, and Guilt in Portugal and the United States and implications for counseling

This study compared the ways that graduate and undergraduate counseling and psychology students from Portugal and the United States evaluated the feelings of Love, Anger and Guilt. Utilizing a semantic differential, a multivariate analysis of variance was employed in which the independent variables were Country and Gender and the dependent variables were the evaluative and potency scales of Love, Anger and Guilt. There was no significant main effect for gender and there was no significant interaction effect for gender by country. There was a significant main effect for country. It was found that students from the United States evaluated Anger more positively than the Portuguese students and that the Portuguese students evaluated Guilt more positively than the United States students. These findings have implications that are relevant to the counseling process.     

Teaching as Interaction: Challenges in Transitioning Teachers’ Instruction to Small Groups

Although small group instruction is often endorsed in teaching young children, teachers are rarely given explicit instruction on how to move instruction into small groups where effective adult-child interactions can take place. This study examines how 14 early childhood educators transitioned their instruction from whole to small group teaching after participating in a year-long program of professional development. The results indicate teachers’ previous definitions of “teaching as dissemination” interfered with their ability to take on new roles, design tasks, and manage time. Implications include the need for teacher educators to focus on how teaching through interaction shifts these aspects of the teaching process.     

Who gets access to fast broadband? Evidence from Los Angeles County

Regulatory and market changes in residential (fixed) broadband have raised concerns about Internet Service Providers (ISPs) prioritizing investments in the most profitable areas, thus relegating low-income and minority communities to fewer broadband options and legacy networks. This study examines these concerns for Los Angeles (LA) County during the 2014–18 period. The analysis uses rollout data collected by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) in combination with demographic information from the American Community Survey (ACS). Because the spatial distribution of broadband investments cannot be directly observed, competition and the availability of FTTH services are used as proxies. The findings indicate that competition and fiber-based services are less likely in low-income areas and minority communities, with the most severe deficits observed in census block groups that combine poverty and a large share of Black residents. We outline alternative policy tools to address intracity inequalities in broadband investments in the conclusion.