Latent Postsecondary Persistence Pathways: Educational Pathways in American Two-Year Colleges

Latent trajectories of credit hour accumulation were modeled using three independent samples of community college students. Five qualitatively distinct patterns of persistence emerged from these samples: Full-time, long-term; 2 years and out; long-term decliners; part-time, long-term; and one term and out. Follow-up analyses using measures on the Community College Student Report indicated that long-term decliner group; the part-time, long-term group; and the one term and out-group were less engaged than full-time students. In particular, the long-term decliner group was the least engaged group. The models illustrate the utility of latent trajectory modeling in higher education research and provide the basis for an empirically based typology of postsecondary persistence pathways. This study was supported by a grant (2890) from the Lumina Foundation.     

How domain specific is motivation and engagement across school,sport, and music? A substantive–methodological synergy assessing young sportspeople and musicians

The primary purpose of this study was to examine the domain specificity (or otherwise) of motivation and engagement across academic, sport, and music domains using a survey-based methodology with parallel forms of the Motivation and Engagement Scale. The secondary purpose of the study was a methodological one seeking to test the most appropriate analytical means of assessing domain specificity. The sample comprised 329 young sportspeople (62% of total sample; 53% male; mean age 14 years) and classical musicians (38% of total sample; 40% male; mean age 14 years) in which target academic, sporting, and music domains are salient. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) led to the conclusion of modest domain specificity in motivation and engagement. This conclusion was based on fit indices for competing models, the size of parallel between-domain correlations, the proportion of shared variance between parallel domains, the number of within-domain correlations that were higher than parallel between-domain correlations, the decline in model fit when parallel correlations were constrained to be equal, and differences between parallel means. Notwithstanding this, constructs that were more trait-like evinced relatively less specificity. In terms of the secondary, methodological purpose, the study found that CFAs that correlated parallel uniquenesses resolved biased parameters found in raw scale score correlations that did not correct for unreliability and CFAs that did not correlate parallel uniquenesses. Together, findings hold implications for more targeted intervention, guidance for appropriate analysis in parallel domains using parallel measures, and more differentiated approaches to measurement.     

What lies beyond effectiveness and efficiency? Adventure learning design

Educational technology and instructional design research has focused on evaluating interventions and innovations in terms of their effectiveness, efficiency, and appeal. While such indicators of learning outcomes are important, designers should also strive for engaging, socially just, and transformational instruction. To illuminate the capabilities of adventure learning, we evaluate three such projects in terms of effectiveness, efficiency, engagement, social justice, and transformational capability. Findings indicate the diverse impact adventure learning has had on K-16 learners and teachers.     

Disinterested,disengaged, useless: Conservative or progressive idea of the university?

There is evidence aplenty of academics' increasing incorporation into the life and fate of their university's brand, just as it is clear that university structures and incentives generally are dependent upon increasingly competitive resource capture under tightened managerial ideologies of institutional commitment (albeit by way of innumerable “consultation” and “responsibilisation” mechanisms). In that context, it becomes important to re‐think and re‐imagine the very “idea of the university”, especially now that images and imperatives around the Engaged University are a) omnipresent and b) convene a whole range of entirely disparate activities, governed by very different intellectual rationales. While hardly wishing to be “against” university involvement in the “wider world”, this article critically questions the new metaphysic of Engagement, and the discursive framings and traps that sustain it. In an age when perhaps only paradox and counter‐intuitive gesturing seem to work as prompts towards thinking otherwise, I make the case that some “traditionalist” ideas of higher education can be part of a reasserted “progressivist” social ethics.     

运动员倦怠的概念、理论模型及研究展望

运动员倦怠是指个体资源与环境要求之间的不平衡,运动员出现即时的、短暂的身心紧张反应,当长期难以有效恢复时,压力反应不断积累,并逐渐发展成以情绪/体力耗竭、成就感降低、运动负评价为特征的身心症状和功能失调状态. 它与过度训练综合症、压力、抑郁等现象既有联系又有区别,需研究者差别对待. 目前,已有多种理论模型对运动员倦怠进行解释,包括认知—情感压力模型、消极训练压力反应模型、单一认同发展和外部控制模型、运动承诺模型和整合模型. 同时,也有研究者基于自我决定理论和成就目标理论对运动员倦怠的形成机制进行研究. 未来可基于工作需求—资源模型考察影响运动员倦怠的外源性因素,从积极心理学视角出发探讨哪些心理资源有助于抵抗运动员倦怠,在研究方法上可采用纵向追踪和质性研究,积极开展运动员投入相关研究.     

Preschoolers’ Physical Activity Participation Across a Yearlong Mastery-Motivational Climate Intervention

Purpose: This study sought to determine how children’s participation in physical activity during a mastery-motivational climate changed during a 20-week intervention and to compare it to children’s free-play activity during a typical day at their local day-care facility. Method: Twelve 4-year-old children participated in a mastery-motivational climate physical activity program delivered 2 days a week for 20 weeks during a period of 8 months. All children were fitted with an Actigraph GT3X triaxial accelerometer. Data from the accelerometers were reduced to determine minutes of sedentary time, light physical activity, and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) during (a) all 20 weeks, and (b) Weeks 1 through 4, Weeks 9 through 12, and Weeks 17 to 20 for the mastery climate. Activity levels in the mastery condition were compared to the children’s activity during unplanned free play in Weeks 1, 10, and 20. Results: During the course of the mastery-motivational climate program, participation in sedentary behavior decreased statistically significantly, while participation in MVPA increased statistically significantly. Within the free-play condition, there were no changes in the levels of activity across time, with the children spending on average more than 80% of their time being sedentary. Conclusions: Findings indicate that when specific task structures associated with a mastery climate are included in an instructional setting, these climate manipulations seem to have a direct effect on physical activity levels once the children learned how to manage themselves in the setting. Free-play activity in and of itself does not appear to stimulate MVPA.     

短道速滑教练员变革型领导行为与运动员角色投入* ——教练员信任的中介作用

研究采用问卷调查、数理统计等研究方法,探讨短道速滑教练员变革型领导行为、运动员对教练员信任、运动员角色投入三者之间的关系,其中重点检验信任在二者间的中介作用.研究发现:教练员个性关怀与智力激励对运动员角色投入具有显著正向影响;教练员领导魅力与个性关怀可以正向预测运动员对教练员的能力信任和公正一致性信任;运动员对教练员的公正一致性信任对运动员角色投入具有显著正向影响;另外,运动员对教练员的公正一致性信任在教练员个性关怀对运动员角色投入预测中具有部分中介作用;并且其还在教练员领导魅力对运动员角色投入的预测中发挥着完全中介作用.     

Towards convergence of mobile and psychological theories of learning

This special issue was designed to promote an integration of mobile and psychological theories of learning by inviting empirical research that draws upon both theoretical approaches to guide investigation into learning involving mobile devices. Five empirical articles illustrated how mobile devices afford resources to learners and how new channels of data afford researchers new insight into learning processes. Authors of two invited commentaries note the challenges involved in researching mobile learning, which unfolds across multiple contexts and can involve novel tools, multiple learners, and instructors and experts. These authors propose a taxonomy that can organize research that investigates interactions amongst learners, instructors, experts, and tools across one or more physical contexts, as well as a research agenda that would empirically test and refine assumptions made by mobile learning theorists. In this commentary, the editorial team proposes that mobile and psychological theories may be improved through convergence. Theories of mobile learning can be advanced by adopting practices previously employed to refine psychological theories of learning, whereas conducting research using mobile devices (and the data they provide) can further refine psychological theories of learning. We illustrate these positions with examples, and consider how instruction must be designed and how learners must be prepared in order to benefit from learning using mobile technology.     

Can the Engagement Model act as a replacement for the P-scale assessment system?

The Engagement Model was launched in January 2020, endeavouring to address the weaknesses of the P-scales assessment for students not yet involved in a subject-specific curriculum. This paper will discuss how and if the tensions between previously adopted assessment systems as discussed in teacher interviews can be reconciled through the Engagement Model in relation to students with autism and severe learning difficulties. The interview findings suggested that some of the problems with assessment, when applied in this context, are related to consistency and transferability, lack of formal recognition of non-academic progress, familiarity with the students, observation skills and training, workload and time, and subjectivity of judgement amongst professionals. When compared with the aims of the Engagement Model, the findings of the research suggest that even though it addresses some of the issues raised, it cannot act as a substitute to the P-scale system as it serves a different purpose.