Finding the missing Einsteins: Expanding the breadth of cognitive and noncognitive measures used in academic services

Education researchers, policymakers, and practitioners are concerned with identifying and developing talent for students with fewer opportunities, especially students from historically marginalized groups. An emerging body of research suggests “universally screening” or testing all students, then matching those students with appropriate educational challenges, is effective in helping marginalized students. However, most tests have focused on two areas: math and verbal reasoning. We leverage three nationally representative samples of the U.S. population at different time points that include both novel cognitive measures (e.g., spatial, mechanical, and abstract reasoning) and non-cognitive measures (e.g., conscientiousness, creativity or word fluency, leadership skill, and artistic skill) to uncover which measures would improve proportional representation of marginalized groups in talent identification procedures. We find that adding spatial reasoning measures in particular—as well as other non-cognitive measures such as conscientiousness, leadership, and creativity—are worthwhile to consider for universal screening procedures for students to narrow achievement gaps at every level of education, including for gifted students. By showing that these nontraditional measures both improve proportional representation of underrepresented groups and have reasonable predictive validity, we also broaden the definition of what it means to be “gifted” and expand opportunities for students from historically marginalized groups.     

No harmless child labor: The effect of child labor on academic achievement in francophone Western and Central Africa

This study empirically examines the effect of child labor on academic achievement in 10 francophone Western and Central African countries. The data were taken from the Programme d’Analyse des Systèmes Educatifs de la CONFEMEN and comprised characteristics of 25,288 grade six students across 1803 schools. Two-stage least squares analysis highlights that child labor undermines academic achievement regardless of subject, gender, and age. It lowers reading and mathematics scores for both genders and for children under 12 and over 13 years. Child labor therefore hinders human capital accumulation in African countries, and it takes place at the cost of future prosperity.     

A multi-criteria approach for the group assessment of an academic course: A case study

The present paper aims at proposing a structured methodology to evaluate the results of an academic training course addressed to postgraduate students. The evaluation process intends to identify the efficacy of an education course by means of a comparison between the general objectives and the results expected by the students. Since the evaluated aspects by the students, detected by means of questionnaires, are both quantitative and qualitative, the proposed methodology is based on the analytic hierarchy process (AHP). In order to facilitate the evaluation process, answers have been modelled by means of linguistic variables. In particular, different evaluation scales have been used and each one is characterized by different levels associated to different fuzzy numbers.     

Adolescents’ autonomous functioning and implicit theories of ability as predictors of their school achievement and week-to-week study regulation and well-being

Research on students’ motivation has mainly focused on interpersonal differences rather than on the ongoing, intrapersonal dynamics that forge students’ everyday life. In this five-month longitudinal (diary) study, we recruited a sample of 179 high school students from Greece (35.8% males; M_age = 16.27; SD = 1.02) to investigate through multilevel analyses the ongoing dynamics of students’ motivation. We did so by examining the relation between autonomous functioning and aspects of study regulation (namely, study efforts and procrastination) and well-being (namely, subjective vitality and depressive feelings). After controlling for perceived competence, we found week-to-week autonomous functioning to relate positively to study efforts and subjective vitality and negatively to procrastination and depressive feelings. Interestingly, implicit theories of ability - the degree to which one believes that ability is fixed or amenable - were found to moderate the week-to-week relations of autonomous functioning to study efforts and homework procrastination. In particular, autonomous functioning co-varied positively to study efforts and negatively to homework procrastination only among students who believed that ability is malleable. Also, beliefs that ability is fixed predicted poorer grades, lower mean levels of study efforts, and higher homework procrastination. The results underscore the necessity of taking a more dynamic view when studying motivational phenomena and the importance of jointly considering the implicit theory framework and self-determination theory.     

传统、现代、后现代与中国哲学的价值

思考中国传统哲学资源在21世纪的价值,离不开西学的参照。由西方传入的现代性与后现代主义为中国哲学的现代转型准备了条件。中国哲学本有的开放性则为这一转型提供了现实的可能。应当在认真总结自身短长的基础上,将西方的现代性精神与中国传统的真善美的价值追求自觉结合起来,“一阴一阳之谓道”的结构模型和变常互动互补的生存机制集中体现了中国哲学的价值。经过与现代性,后现代的相互折衷,必将能够适应新世纪的需要。     

Critically reflexive dialogue and praxis: Academic/practitioner reflections throughout a formative evaluation of Circles® USA

Reflections about the use of critically reflexive praxis by academic/practitioners are offered based on a case study of a formative evaluation of Circles^® USA, a nonprofit organization coordinating initiatives across the U.S. working to move families out of poverty. Critically reflexive praxis is theorized as featuring several themes including acknowledging different levels of context, critical dialogue with collaborators, engaging cultural difference and intersectionalities, problematizing power relations and relationships among researchers and collaborators, and occurring throughout the research project. Examples of critical dialogic reflexivity and navigating common tensions that emerge throughout such community engagement projects are detailed during three phases: planning and design; fieldwork and interviews; and outcomes, applications, and implications.     

试论职业资格考试对教育供求的调节

职业资格证书制度属于国家考试制度,学历证书制度属于国家教育 制度,二者对教育供求的调节产生了不同影响。在学历社会向资格社会转轨过程 中,要实现职业资格考试对教育供求的有效调节,就必须研究职业资格考试与教 育供求调节的关系,改革国家教育培训制度,更好地适应劳动力市场的需要,这是 优化人力资源配置、加强人力资源能力建设的重要课题。     

Floating collection in an academic library: An audacious experiment that succeeded

Can a floating collection thrive in a large multicampus academic research library? Floating collections have been successful in public libraries for some time, but it is uncommon for academic libraries and unheard of for a large academic library system. This article will discuss the investigation into the feasibility of a floating collection at Penn State University Libraries, its implementation, and continuation for a period covering 2009 through 2015. Attaining the floating collection, limited to monographs in the general stacks of campus libraries, proved to be easier to implement than imagined and resulted in unintended benefits as well as some surprises.