Academic Beliefs Research Articles

Stability of Religious Orientation and Academic Dishonesty

This study examines the probable influence of individual religiosity on academic cheating among a group of Seventh-day Adventist youth, grades 6 through 12. A multiple-regression analysis was used to determine the relationship between academic beliefs or behaviors and academic dishonesty. The following research questions were investigated: (1) Is there a relationship between students' religious experience or religious activities and academic honesty? (2) What religious variables influence academic honesty? and (3) What is the correlation between the stability of religious orientation and academic honesty? Although the final model proved to be statistically significant, the findings suggest no direct impact on academic honesty. The implications of this study and the influential factors are discussed.

Group Differences in African American Adolescents' Achievement-Related Beliefs About Math and Science: An Initial Study

This study examined group differences in the academic achievement beliefs of African American adolescents. The participants (N = 102) were involved in an academic enrichment program. Analyses of variance assessed gender and achievement level differences in the early adolescents' achievement beliefs regarding math and science. Results showed that boys had more positive beliefs about their abilities and expectancies for success in math and science than did girls, and boys valued science more than did the girls. In math, lower achieving females stated that they tried harder than did lower achieving males, and higher achieving males believed they tried harder than did higher achieving females. Higher achieving students valued math and science more than did the lower achieving students. For science, higher achievers believed they tried harder and held more positive beliefs about their science abilities. Students earning higher grades in science were more likely to attribute it to their efforts.

Differences in the motivational beliefs of Asian American and non-Asian students.

This investigation explored differences in motivational beliefs of 154 Asian American and 372 non-Asian 9th graders. Students completed surveys indicating their academic beliefs and later responded to a novel task to assess their achievement behavior. The difference in type of beliefs between the two groups explained, in part, their achievement behavior. Asian American students' fear of the consequence of academic failure best explained their performance. However, this variable least explained the results for non-Asian students. Asian American students reported lower levels of self-efficacy beliefs, yet significantly outperformed their non-Asian counterparts on the task. The fear of academic failure better explained achievement motivation for Asian Americans than did self-efficacy beliefs. A major implication of this investigation is that motivational beliefs elicit different responses in different cultural-ethnic groups.

The business cycle model with a unique stable limit cycle

Abstract This paper provides the mathematical foundation to the long-standing academic belief that Goodwin's 1951 nonlinear business cycle model has a unique stable limit cycle. In spite of the asymmetric nonlinearity of investment function, the model has certainly a unique stable limit cycle in an economically meaningful region. Once solution paths start from any initial point in the region, they all tend to the limit cycle without escaping from the region or hitting the ceiling or floor of investment during a transition period. The structural stability of the model prevents the limit cycle from vanishing in the face of small perturbations.

Combining management consultancy and research

Consultancy provides the academic with experience which can provide a rich source of research material. In practice attempts to combine consultancy and research can be frustrating. In general consultants and academics differ in their motivations, outlook and behaviour. For a consulting assignment to act as a research vehicle, many different approaches can be adopted and a wide variety of subject matter can be the focus of attention. In the paper these issues are explored in relation to the author's experience in conducting an information systems project at an Australian iron ore mine. Consultants lack an explicit philosophy to provide coherence to their practice: pragmatism may be sufficient but the possibilities of a post-modernist stance are intriguing. For academics who wish to engage in consultancy the challenge is to understand and perform the role of the consultant beyond the constraints of their academic beliefs and behaviours.

The Ideological Origins of the Population Association of America

Discussing the origins of the field of population requires looking at it in 1 of 2 ways: either a narrow view of the past based on the contemporary efforts of demographers or a broad view of the past that encompasses any and all people or disciplines that were involved in population issues at the time. This essay deals with the later view and uses a document from 1930 to illustrate its point. The Population Association of America (PAA) was founded by 13 people from diverse academic and activist backgrounds. The 1st meeting was used to solidify what was at the time chaotic mixture of differing ideologies and interests. At the 1st meeting a list of 70 other people who were to be invited to join was created. This list and the members of the 1st meeting serve as an excellent basis to see who was concerned about population issues. Motives for wanting to study and effect population have from the beginning been primarily based on race and class. Darwin Spencer and Malthus were all influential in shaping the beliefs of academics and educated Americans. There were 4 primary interests of the founding members of PAA: immigration restriction eugenics birth control and population science. All the members could be roughly divided into 2 classes: scientists or activists. In the beginning of the population field the activists outnumbered the scientists. People became interested in population because they saw it as a vehicle to be used to further their own agendas. Many of these agendas were contradictory. The biggest issue studied in the beginning of the population field was the fertility decline of middle and upper class white Americans and the high fertility rates of lower class non-white Americans (including southern and eastern Europeans). Today the field of population is predominated by scientists; however laws that effect population are still guided primarily by ideology rather than the good of the commonwealth. Laws that restrict womens reproductive rights immigration and naturalization are still biased for and against certain groups based on race and class.

Ret in the college classroom

Thirty-five undergraduates participated in an outcome study which compared the results of enrollment in an RET seminar with enrollment in a seminar on another psychotherapy topic, Humanistic Psychology, and two seminars which lacked a psychotherapeutic orientation: Social Development and Extra Sensory Perception. RET instruction failed to decrease irrationality significantly. However, students who received RET instruction had significantly higher perceived self-efficacy than did those in the two nontherapy oriented seminars. There was a significant, inverse relationship between academic achievement (grade point average) and irrational beliefs about need for comfort, need for approval, awfulizing, and low frustration tolerance. Perceived self-efficacy was significantly and positively associated with high academic achievement. Superior students were significantly less likely than their peers to awfulize or exhibit low frustration tolerance; the poorest students were the least likely group to perceive themselves as effective. The implications of these findings for educators and counselors were addressed.

Aspiring parents' and teachers' academic beliefs about young children

This study is an attempt to determine whether (a) the gender of a young child would elicit differential academic beliefs from individuals who aspire to become parents and teachers; and (b) male and female individuals who aspire to become parents and teachers have differential academic beliefs about young children. Data from 108 university students who intended to become parents and teachers showed that the gender of a young child elicited differential academic beliefs, and that male and female aspiring parents and teachers tended to have different academic beliefs about young children. The findings are discussed in terms of the relationship between stereotyped socialization practices and differential achievement between the two genders. Implications of the findings for education are noted.

Academic Disciplines and Representative Advocacy

In court cases, legislative hearings, or regulatory proceedings where tech nical questions arise, economists or other academics are often hired by one or both sides to promote their points of view and to find flaws with the other side's case. These contexts present at least an apparent conflict between the academic belief in a right answer to a question, and the presence of academic experts taking opposite sides of an issue. Such representative advocacy by academic experts thus suggests potential conflicts between the

A Test of Three Models of Bias in Self-Assessment

A sample of 1508 high school boys from a national longitudinal survey of academic abilities and beliefs was used to test self-enhancement, self-consistency and stability-contingent theory. Respondents completed standardized ability tests, self-ratings of those abilities and measures of self-esteem and stability of self-esteem. Self-enhancement theory predicts that persons low, in contrast to high, in self-esteem will overrate their ability relative to the standardized measures in order to increase esteem. Self-consistency theory makes the opposite prediction: in order to avoid inconsistency and hence psychological uncertainty, people will make self-ratings that are compatible with their level of self-esteem. A third model, the stability-contingent hypothesis, was also tested. This model predicts that subjects with unstable self-esteem will show enhancement effects while those with stable levels of self-esteem will show consistency effects. Little support was found for either enhancement theory or the stability contingent hypothesis. Instead, self-consistency effects seem to be operating for all our dependent measures.

Beliefs and the subjective meaning of thoughts: Analysis of the role of self-statements in academic test performance

Although research in test anxiety has shown that anxious students emit more negative self-statements than nonanxious students, there is little evidence directly linking negative thoughts to lower test performance. One explanation for this finding is that covert self-statements may function differently depending on an individual's academic competence beliefs. This study was designed to evaluate this formulation first by comparing high and low competence beliefs groups on the frequency of negative thought content during a simulated testing session and for differences in the subjective meaning that they attached to these covert thoughts. Second, the degree to which negative thoughts correlated with test performance and the degree to which non-facilitative subjective meaning responses correlated with test performance were compared. Results indicated that differences in competence beliefs were unrelated to negative thoughts but were significantly related to the types of subjective meaning given thought-listed responses. Comparisons among the cognitive variables showed that only subjective meaning responses were consistently predictive of anagram and math test performance. Results are discussed in light of supplemental analyses and with regard to further research and clinical implications.

Educational Level and Primary Beliefs about Unidentified Flying Objects Held by Recognized Ufologists

Academic degree and primary beliefs about the nature of UFOs were collected from 102 recognized urologists by two independent raters. Over a third of the population of ufologists held doctorates while another third had bachelor's or Master's degrees. The most frequent belief about the nature of UFOs is that they are extraterrestrial in nature (39%) while a large percentage of the ufologists did not express a primary belief (30%). It was suggested that the epistemology underlying UFO beliefs is fertile ground for research.

University excellence: Students' academic reform beliefs

In this study of 460 SIU-C students conducted in May 1973, five topics are explored. First, to what extent do these students view the academic community as taking the quest for academic excellence seriously? Second, how do these students rate various components of the university regarding academic excellence? Third, who do these students perceive as the source of leadership in the university concerning the achievement of excellence? Fourth, how long do these students feel it will take for excellence to be effected in the university, and how much change must result for excellence to occur? Last, for excellence to be achieved, what types of qualitative changes must occur, and how will the university differ qualitatively if excellence is effected? The results of this study are discussed within a political model of the academic system, treating the university as a political system and students as quasi-citizens who possess a rudimentary academic belief system.

Race and Class as Differential Determinants of Underachievement and Underaspiration among Mexican-Americans and Anglos

This study compares Mexican-American and Anglo eleventh grade high school students from the lower and middle socioeconomic classes with respect to (a.) locus of control, adequate achievement reality orientation and temporal orientation as potential correlates of (b.) current scholastic performance and future educational and vocational goals. In general this study indicated that membership in social class rather than racial group was the critical factor in determining (a.) current academic achievement, (b.) educational aspirations, and (c.) belief in one's ability to control his environment. Inferences emerge that generalizations from one ethnic minor ity group and/or socioeconomic class to another group or class may not necessarily be valid. In addition, programs designed to involve low-achieving and low-aspiring students, should take relevant variables such as social class into account in their development.

The Christian Character of Certain Liberal Arts Colleges with a Focus on the Academic Arena

The purpose of this study was to determine whether Catholic colleges have a distinctive Christian character with respect to their academic beliefs and practices as perceived by their academic deans. The Christian Character Questionnaire (CCQ) was designed by the writer from postVatican Council II descriptions of the contemporary Catholic college or university. The CCQ consists of 45 statements to be answered in two ways, evaluating both the real and the ideal academic beliefs and practices of the faculty and administration of the college. The subjects consisted of academic deans from a random sample of 42 Catholic, 42 Protestant, and 41 non-sectarian colleges. Ninety-nine responded.