Teaching in the Yukon: Exploring teachers’ efficacy beliefs,stress, and job satisfaction in a remote setting

This article presents a mixed methods examination of teachers’ job beliefs in the Yukon Territory in northern Canada. In Study 1 we used questionnaires to examine job beliefs for 221 teachers from the Yukon and western Canada. Teachers’ self- and collective efficacy and workload stress were lower for Yukon teachers, but levels of overall stress and satisfaction were similar across settings. In Study 2 we conducted interviews to examine how geographical, community, and cultural factors were related to Yukon teachers’ job beliefs. Results showed that job stress and job satisfaction were influenced by physical and human geography, level of connection with the community, and by the community's cultural transitions. The findings highlight the influence of cultural and community factors on teachers’ working lives.     

Academic procrastination of undergraduates: Low self-efficacy to self-regulate predicts higher levels of procrastination

This article reports two studies exploring the academic procrastination of 456 undergraduates. Study 1 explores the relationships among academic procrastination, self-regulation, academic self-efficacy, self-esteem, and self-efficacy for self-regulation. Results reveal that although other self-variables are related to procrastination, self-efficacy for self-regulation is most predictive of procrastination tendencies. Study 2 examines academic and motivation characteristics of “negative procrastinators,” the undergraduates who are most adversely influenced by procrastination. The 25% of 195 participants in Study 2 who were classified as negative procrastinators had significantly lower GPAs, higher levels of daily and task procrastination, lower predicted and actual class grades, and lower self-efficacy for self-regulation. After controlling for GPA, daily procrastination and self-efficacy for self-regulation significantly predicted the negative impact of procrastination. The article concludes with a discussion of the importance that self-efficacy for self-regulation holds for procrastination research, and with suggestions for practitioners who work with students who are adversely affected by procrastination.     

Conflicting logics of online higher education

Abstract

The advent of massive open online courses and online degrees offered via digital platforms has occurred in a climate of austerity. Public universities worldwide face challenges to expand their educational reach, while competing in international rankings, raising fees and generating third-stream income. Online forms of unbundled provision offering smaller flexible low-cost curricular units have promised to disrupt this system. Yet do these forms challenge existing hierarchies in higher education and the market logic that puts pressure on universities and public institutions at large in the neoliberal era? Based on fieldwork in South Africa, this article explores the perceptions of senior managers of public universities and of online programme management companies. Analysing their considerations around unbundled provision, we discuss two conflicting logics of higher education that actors in structurally different positions and in historically divergent institutions use to justify their involvement in public–private partnerships: the logic of capital and the logic of social relevance.     

Procrastination and Motivation of Undergraduates with Learning Disabilities: A Mixed‐Methods Inquiry

The purpose of this mixed‐methods article was to report two studies exploring the relationships between academic procrastination and motivation in 208 undergraduates with (n= 101) and without (n= 107) learning disabilities (LD). In Study 1, the results from self‐report surveys found that individuals with LD reported significantly higher levels of procrastination, coupled with lower levels of metacognitive self‐regulation and self‐efficacy for self‐regulation than those without LD. Procrastination was most strongly (inversely) related to self‐efficacy for self‐regulation for both groups, and the set of motivation variables reliably predicted group membership with regard to LD status. In Study 2, individual interviews with 12 students with LD resulted in five themes: LD‐related problems, self‐beliefs and procrastination, outcomes of procrastination, antecedents of procrastination, and support systems. The article concludes with an integration of quantitative and qualitative results, with attention paid to implications for service providers working with undergraduates with LD.