A Test of Gottfredson's Theory Using a Ten-Year Longitudinal Study

Occupational aspirations of a longitudinal sample of students were examined over a ten-year time period, from second to twelfth grade. Hypotheses from Gottfredson's theory of career development (1981, 1996) and from social learning theory (Lent, Brown & Hackett, 1994) were examined. The social value of children's occupational aspirations increased into the early high school years and started to fall by their senior year in high school when internal, unique personal factors were more evident in occupational aspirations as Gottfredson would predict. Through eighth grade, about 40 percent of boys and up to 20 percent of girls held occupational aspirations that could be classified as fantasy. Social learning theory suggests that children would relinquish fantasy occupational aspirations with age because of self-awareness and knowledge of the world of work. This change was evident as a significant shift toward more realistic occupational aspirations occurred during the late high school years.     

An assessment of international college student adjustment

International students have realistic expectations about their adjustment to college, however, they seem to experience a more difficult transition than U.S. students. Scores on the Student Adaptation to College Questionnaire for international and U.S. students are compared. The results indicated that international students scored significantly lower on the social and the institutional attachment and goal commitment subscales. The Student Adaptation to College Questionnaire may have applications in targeting international student needs.     

Mediational significance of PTSD in the relationship of sexual trauma and eating disorders

OBJECTIVE: To examine the mediational significance of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and the development of eating disorder symptomatology following sexually traumatic experiences. METHOD: Seventy-one victims of sexual trauma and 25 control subjects completed interviews and questionnaires assessing eating disorder psychopathology and posttraumatic stress disorder symptomatology. Mediational analyses were conducted examining the relationships among trauma, posttraumatic stress, and eating disorder symptoms. Mediational significance was assessed by the drop in the overall correlation between trauma and eating disorder symptoms when PTSD symptoms were included in the regression model. RESULTS: There is a significant association between a history of trauma and eating disorder symptoms. Also, there was a significant association between a history of trauma and posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms. Importantly, the relationship between trauma and eating disorder symptoms was significantly reduced when posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms were included in the regression analyses, indicating mediational significance of the posttraumatic stress construct. These findings were most pronounced for the physiological arousal and avoidance components of posttraumatic stress disorder. DISCUSSION: The present findings support the idea that individuals who develop eating disorders after sexual trauma are likely to have experienced posttraumatic stress disorder symptomatology. These findings have significant implications for causal models of eating disorder onset in trauma victims. Furthermore, clinical interventions for traumatized eating disordered individuals may benefit from a focus on posttraumatic stress symptomatology.     

Time Use and Mathematics Achievement among American, Chinese, and Japanese High School Students

Cultural differences in the structure of adolescents' daily lives were examined by interviewing representative samples of 578 grade 11 students, aged 16–17 years, in Minneapolis, Taipei (Taiwan), and Sendai (Japan) about the amounts of time they spent in a wide variety of activities. Studying, interacting with peers, and watching television were the most frequent activities in all 3 locations, but the relative importance of each activity differed among the locations. Chinese students spent significantly more time than American students engaged in academic endeavors, such as attending school and after-school classes and studying. Japanese students did not spend significantly more time studying or attending after-school classes than American students, but they did spend more time attending school. American students, in turn, spent more time working and socializing with friends. Differences in adolescents' use of time were related to both cross-cultural and individual differences in mathematics achievement.     

Informal writing-to-learn as a dimension of a student profile

In this paper an aspect (student questioning) of a pedagogical model of writing-to-learn will be explored. It will be shown that the task of keeping a journal (as defined within the model) has two salient assessment features: The journals differentiate between students at a particular grade level; and, they show a growth in sophistication over successive years. These two features of writing-to-learn recommend its use as a dimension for profiling students' progress in learning mathematics. It will be argued that profiles developed from journal writing enrich the picture of the student as learner.     

The Impact of Misspelled Words on Automated Computer Scoring: A Case Study of Scientific Explanations

Automated computerized scoring systems (ACSSs) are being increasingly used to analyze text in many educational settings. Nevertheless, the impact of misspelled words (MSW) on scoring accuracy remains to be investigated in many domains, particularly jargon-rich disciplines such as the life sciences. Empirical studies confirm that MSW are a pervasive feature of human-generated text and that despite improvements, spell-check and auto-replace programs continue to be characterized by significant errors. Our study explored four research questions relating to MSW and text-based computer assessments: (1) Do English language learners (ELLs) produce equivalent magnitudes and types of spelling errors as non-ELLs? (2) To what degree do MSW impact concept-specific computer scoring rules? (3) What impact do MSW have on computer scoring accuracy? and (4) Are MSW more likely to impact false-positive or false-negative feedback to students? We found that although ELLs produced twice as many MSW as non-ELLs, MSW were relatively uncommon in our corpora. The MSW in the corpora were found to be important features of the computer scoring models. Although MSW did not significantly or meaningfully impact computer scoring efficacy across nine different computer scoring models, MSW had a greater impact on the scoring algorithms for naïve ideas than key concepts. Linguistic and concept redundancy in student responses explains the weak connection between MSW and scoring accuracy. Lastly, we found that MSW tend to have a greater impact on false-positive feedback. We discuss the implications of these findings for the development of next-generation science assessments.     

The quest for institutional autonomy in the Dutch higher education sector

The term ‘market forces’ has become one of the great clarion calls of the modern era. They are seen as providing the flexibility and responsiveness necessary to allow the satisfaction of consumer demands. Market forces is a term used chiefly to describe economic relationships. Can the characteristics of an economic system be used to characterise the wider society? In particular can increased flexibility and responsiveness to the needs of the consumer play a role in the shaping of Dutch educational policy? In the Netherlands the exigency of financial restraint has prompted educational expenditure cuts. Concomitant to these has been a move towards decentralisation, with self-regulation at the institutional level. Moves that have been characterised as constituting a change in the power structure. This paper argues that the operation of market forces and the promotion of institutional autonomy requires financial independence. Without financial autonomy institutional autonomy may well be a pipe dream.     

Enhancing transfer of learning through post-course reflection

This article investigates how a structured post-course follow-up reflection activity affects the depth of reflection and facilitates the transfer of learning. The research is reflective, based on the findings from the Action Learning Management Practicum, a 3^rd year paper at Massey University, New Zealand. The initial reflections at the end of the course generally went no deeper than students “noticing”, or “making sense” of the experiences. With the benefit of distance and time away from the course, the students' reflection was deep and insightful. The findings suggest that the post-course reflection activity enables participants to “make meaning” from their experiences with the benefit of time and distance from the initial post-course reflection, thus enhancing the transfer of learning. The article argues for an extension and adaptation to Kolb's “Experiential Learning Cycle” model in relation to the time of reflection based on the empirical evidence provided.