Interpreting differences between the United States and New Zealand university students’ engagement scores as measured by the NSSE and AUSSE

Press releases concerning the Australasian Survey of Student Engagement (AUSSE) results warn that university students in Australia and New Zealand are less engaged than their peers at United States institutions. Such warnings about student engagement and interactions then become targets for improvement on Australasian universities’ strategic plans. In considering New Zealand university students’ survey responses, we examined AUSSE and the US National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) data for 2009 and 2010 with respect to all items that load on the five scales these instruments share. We argue that most of the observed differences in responses, response distributions and subsequent scale scores can be attributed to differences in educational pathways and cultures between the USA and New Zealand. Consequently, considerable caution in these trans-Pacific comparisons is warranted, particularly when formulating policy and practices to improve student engagement in New Zealand based on methods that have been employed in different educational contexts.     

Students’ Discrete Emotional Responses in the Classroom: Unraveling Relationships With Interest and Engagement

Recent instructional communication research reveals that the communication and emotional processes at play in the classroom can influence class-specific emotions experienced by students. Students’ enjoyment and pride were positively related to their emotional interest, while students’ enjoyment, hope, and pride were positively associated with their cognitive interest. While students’ anger and boredom were inversely related to their emotional interest, students who reported greater hopelessness and anger indicated decreases in cognitive interest. Students’ hope and pride were positively associated with their overall engagement behaviors. Anger, anxiety, shame, and boredom led students to report decreases in their engagement. Follow-up tests highlighted challenges in the assessment of specific emotional responses; exploratory factor analysis simplified the measurement of these variables and provided additional insight into expected relationships.     

美国儿童绘本出版中的性别理念研究--兼论国内儿童读物中性别教育的缺失

儿童绘本在上个世纪末从欧美国家进入中国市场,短短十几年时间形成了良好的发展态势和稳定的读者群,但其中广受欢迎的大多是引进版儿童绘本,国内原创作品生存艰难。本文以美国出版的儿童绘本为研究对象,以性别视角为切入点,采用内容分析和文本细读等方法,从性别的呈现频度、角色设置和人格培养等方面进行对比分析,力图为国内原创绘本的发展提供更加国际化的人文视野。     

Engagement: rhetoric’s tale from the field

‘Engagement’ has since the mid-1990s led to a series of initiatives and campus centers wherein many universities attempt strategies that are primarily administrative and programmatic. By contrast, our tale from the field points to an inherent and original connection between rhetoric and engagement; we propose that the fundamental principles of rhetoric and communication equip scholars to work effectively toward the goal of engaged research and teaching. Our stories from the University of Texas Intellectual Entrepreneurship Consortium and from the University of Pittsburgh’s Honors College indicate that there is significant value and power in taking to heart the lessons of the discipline for our own actions and lives as educators. Acting on what we know directs us toward such concepts as invention, discovery, argument, deliberation, advocacy, and intervention – the rhetorical instruments needed to change the academic culture and create environments for engaged learning.     

Students’ adaptability in mathematics: Examining self-reports and teachers’ reports and links with engagement and achievement outcomes

Adaptability refers to the capacity to adjust one’s thoughts, behaviors, and emotions in order to manage changing, new, or uncertain demands. Although preliminary research has highlighted its relevance for positive student outcomes, there remain several important empirical questions to be examined. In particular, research on adaptability has used domain-general measures (i.e., not tied to a particular domain such as a school subject) and has focused only on self-reports of adaptability (not, for example, reports by significant others). The aim of the current study was to advance knowledge of adaptability by addressing these gaps. We examined students’ domain-specific adaptability in mathematics as reported by students themselves and by their mathematics teachers (n = 371). We examined the extent to which the two reports of mathematics adaptability are associated with students’ mathematics engagement, mathematics achievement, and literacy achievement (the latter a test of discriminant validity). Well-known covariates were included as controls (e.g., gender, prior achievement). Results revealed that student-reported adaptability predicted students’ mathematics engagement. Moreover, student-reported and teacher-reported adaptability uniquely predicted mathematics achievement. In terms of discriminant validity, (mathematics-based) student and teacher reports of adaptability were not associated with students’ literacy achievement. Together, findings advance knowledge of the adaptability construct, including providing preliminary evidence of domain-specificity and the complementary nature of self- and teacher-reports for assessing adaptability. Implications for practice are discussed.     

Factors that deepen or attenuate decline of science utility value during the middle school years

Utility value is associated with positive learning outcomes in science and is often used to motivate engagement in the sciences, but less is known about what influences its development and maintenance, particularly during the critical middle school years. Using multinomial regression applied to longitudinal data from approximately 2600 middle-school students, we test the relationship of science classroom experiences (affective engagement, behavioral-cognitive engagement, & perceived success) and optional formal and optional informal experiences to changes in science utility value. Furthermore, we address whether the same factors that predict growth in utility value also predict absence of decline. Overall, we find all five factors are associated with changes in utility value, but some have different relationships with growth vs. decline outcomes. These findings provide a more nuanced view of factors associated with utility value towards science (both in and out of the science classroom), as well as practical implications for educational practice.     

In the eyes of the beholder: The relevance of skin tone and facial features of African American female models to advertising effectiveness

The increasing use of light‐complexioned black models with Caucasian features in ads has been roundly criticized. This study was designed to test if black female models with Caucasian features are more effective in ads than black models with “classical” features. A 2×2 factorial design was used with two models (mixed‐race and “classical” black) and two products (beauty‐related and beauty‐unrelated). MANOVA tests showed that regardless of the type of product, the type of model did not make a significant difference on the measures of advertising effectiveness. Neither were the interaction effects significant.     

Undergraduate Biotechnology Students’ Views of Science Communication

Despite rapid growth of the biotechnology industry worldwide, a number of public concerns about the application of biotechnology and its regulation remain. In response to these concerns, greater emphasis has been placed on promoting biotechnologists’ public engagement. As tertiary science degree programmes form the foundation of the biotechnology sector by providing a pipeline of university graduates entering into the profession, it has been proposed that formal science communication training be introduced at this early stage of career development. The aim of the present study was to examine the views of biotechnology students towards science communication and science communication training. Using an Australian biotechnology degree programme as a case study, 69 undergraduates from all three years of the programme were administered a questionnaire that asked them to rank the importance of 12 components of a biotechnology curriculum, including two science communication items. The results were compared to the responses of 274 students enrolled in other science programmes. Additional questions were provided to the second year biotechnology undergraduates and semi‐structured interviews were undertaken with 13 of these students to further examine their views of this area. The results of this study suggest that the biotechnology students surveyed do not value communication with non‐scientists nor science communication training. The implications of these findings for the reform of undergraduate biotechnology courses yet to integrate science communication training into their science curriculum are discussed.     

How common is the common good? Moving beyond idealistic notions of deliberative democracy in education

Assumptions based on deliberative democratic theory have dominated scholarship of democratic citizenship within political science and educational research. However, both fields have produced scholarship that raises questions regarding the efficacy of the deliberative model of democratic education. This article presents a critical synthesis that highlights the major trends of deliberative democratic theory from the field of political science, while making connections to education specific literature. The shift, away from idealistic notions toward a model of deliberative democracy that considers identity, group interests, and power differences within society, supports similar efforts to revisit democratic theory within civic education. The article concludes with recommendations for a revised, more realistic, conceptualization of civic education.     

Information Management in Smart Cities: Turning end users’ views into multi-item scale development,validation, and policy-making recommendations

Smart-cities research has established itself as one of the most dynamic fields in research today, accommodating scholars from diverse disciplines, including engineering and computer science as well as social sciences. Even if only tacitly, the resultant debate increasingly oscillates around how the effective use of information and communication technology (ICT) might render cities and urban space better places. This article responds to this imperative by suggesting how to capture users’ views and perceptions of smart city services and applications and in this way enrich the decision- and policy-making processes. It is argued that by developing appropriate scales these otherwise subjective views and perceptions may be objectivized and hence made of great use to managers and policymakers. Accordingly, in this research, a process of scale development is conducted in four phases of both inductive and deductive methods. Following initial rounds of focus groups and assessment by experts, an international survey was conducted with 295 participants from Europe, Asia, Latin America, the Arab Peninsula, and other regions. The data were analyzed using IBM SPSS 24 and AMOS 20 tools. The study proposes a 20-item scale in five distinct dimensions: Technology anxiety; Work–life interface; Engagement orientation; Support orientation; and Quality of life. The significant theoretical and managerial implications are discussed to demonstrate how to manage information for the benefit of all stakeholders involved in the making of a smart city.