Perceptions of job satisfaction,job stability,and quality of professional life among rural and urban school psychologists

A survey was conducted of 231 psychologists from a midwestern state. Investigators surveyed perceptions of job satisfaction, job stability, and quality of professional life. Responses of rural and urban professionals were compared. While resembling urban colleagues in most regards, rural psychologists appear more satisfied with working environments and job policies. Discussion is presented on differences between the two groups on a number of variables influencing perceptions.     

International student satisfaction with,and behavioural intentions towards,universities in Victoria

International students make a vital contribution to the Australian economy. Due to their importance, a number of studies have been undertaken to examine the living experiences, attitudes and behaviours of international students in Australia. However, very few studies have examined international students' overall satisfaction with their university experience. The primary objective of this paper is to measure the influence of six individual university service factors on international students' satisfaction, and its subsequent impact on behavioural intentions. The results from the structural equation modelling analysis revealed that overall student satisfaction is influenced by the level of satisfaction with academic services, courses offered, access and augmented services. In contrast, administrative services and physical evidence were found to have a non-significant impact on overall satisfaction. Analysis also revealed a strong relationship between overall satisfaction and behavioural intentions.     

Privatisation, Decentralisation And Governance In Education In The Czech Republic, England, France, Germany And Sweden

The Czech Republic, England, France, Germany and Sweden differ culturally and economically, but they commonly exhibit general trends of decentralisation in the control of educational processes and outcomes. The present contribution looks at these five European countries as the venue for case studies in educational restructuring as well as evaluation, assessment and reporting. It shows that such trends have been most radical in the Czech Republic and Sweden, while England has centralised curriculum policy and France has devolved some decision-making to bodies at lower levels, but as representatives of the central state.     

On some psychological aspects of mathematics achievement assessment and classroom interaction

The way students and teachers evaluate mathematics achievement differs in certain respects. To which causal performance is ascribed determines the teacher's strategy to interact with the student on the one hand and influences the student's willingness to invest additional effort on the other. Certain possible causal factors for success and failure in mathematics and their relation to teacher-student-interaction are discussed in the present article. A rather general cognitive scheme, the teachers reference norm, explains differences between the teacher's perception and assessment of student characteristics and subsequent teaching interventions.     

Learned predictiveness effects following single-cue training in humans

The results of several recent studies of human associative learning indicate that people will learn more rapidly about cues that have previously been experienced as predictive of events of significance, as compared with cues previously experienced as nonpredictive. Notably, however, these experiments have typically established this prior predictiveness by means of pretraining with multiple, simultaneously presented cues, some of which are more predictive than others. The present experiments instead investigated the influence of prior predictiveness on future learning when this predictiveness was established via pretraining with individual cues, each of which was the best available predictor of the outcome with which it was paired. Results indicate that, following this pretraining, human participants again show better learning about previously predictive cues than about previously nonpredictive cues.     

Residents’ perceptions of mega sport event legacies and impacts

The purpose of this study was to examine perceptions of local residents prior to the public referendum for the 2024 Hamburg Olympic bid and to assess their level of support for the bid. The representative survey conducted amongst Hamburg residents reveals a high level of support but also a strong perception of negative legacies. A comparison between the perceived positive and negative legacies shows that the negative legacies outweigh the positive legacies. When examining factors that influence support, statistical analysis reveals the perception of positive legacies as the strongest predictor of support. The survey also indicates that residents attach great importance to the costs of the Games and feel no personal benefit from hosting them. The findings suggest that Games organizers and authorities should mostly rely on positive legacies while negative legacies ought to be mitigated.     

A fluorescence based method for the quantification of surface functional groups in closed micro- and nanofluidic channels

Surface analysis is critical for the validation of microfluidic surface modifications for biology, chemistry, and physics applications. However, until now quantitative analytical methods have mostly been focused on open surfaces. Here, we present a new fluorescence imaging method to directly measure the surface coverage of functional groups inside assembled microchannels over a wide dynamic range. A key advance of our work is the elimination of self-quenching to obtain a linear signal even with a high density of functional groups. This method is applied to image the density and monitor the stability of vapor deposited silane layers in bonded silicon/glass micro- and nanochannels.