Academic Growth Research Articles

Storm Clouds on the Horizon: The 3 Perils of Unconstrained Academic Growth in Physical Therapist Education.

Storm Clouds on the Horizon: The 3 Perils of Unconstrained Academic Growth in Physical Therapist Education.

Impact of Motivational Factors on Teachers of Higher Education

Since teaching is one of the most important and noble profession in the world it is very important to continuously evaluate the system to brings in better prospects for a teacher. Teaching fraternity is the pillar of educational system of any Nation. Teachers play an imperative role in building the personality of individuals. The paper helps us in assessing that how teachers’ motivation level is critical for the successful functioning of educational system and for improving the quality of educational institutions. Being a multifaceted phenomenon, motivation brings along a wide range of struggle for both employers and employees. The aim of this paper research is to identify and discuss the factors that influence higher education teachers’ motivation and impact on their lives. The dimensions of private institutes/universities can be understood with more humane angle. The study has resulted into an indication that teachers’ motivation level is affected by the several work related factors. It is advent that private institutions faculty members are motivated by financial factors and academic growth opportunity and supportive work environment to name a few as non-financial factors. The empirical study of intrinsic and extrinsic dimensions of motivation gives us food for thought to develop or redesign the policies of higher education employees with more sensitivity.

Incorporating student mobility in studying academic growth in math: comparing several alternative multilevel formulations

ABSTRACT Increasing pupil mobility has led to widespread concern among parents, educators, and policymakers regarding its negative effects on academic performance. An important issue in examining mobility effects in longitudinal school achievement comparisons is providing accurate estimates. The presence of pupil mobility suggests that we should model pupils as belonging to the series of schools attended and not just their first or final school. We discuss several challenges in accounting for student mobility and, because of the presence of mobile pupils, how to represent the contribution of multiple schools attended on estimating academic growth properly. We then contrast several previous longitudinal multilevel models utilized with two cross-classified multiple membership (CCMM) models, which have been proposed to cumulate annual school effects on pupils’ academic growth better given the complexity of the multilevel data structure. We discuss our results in terms of their theoretical and practical implications for research on school academic improvement.

Exploring creativity's complex relationship with learning in early elementary students

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between learning and creativity in early elementary students using both static and growth achievement scores in reading and mathematics. Participants were kindergarten and first grade students from the Midwestern United States. Initial correlations demonstrated significant positive relationships between students’ performance on the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking –Figural (TTCT-F) and static academic achievement scores in both reading and mathematics, but that same relationship did not exist with academic growth scores. Specifically, when academic growth was examined further using Generalized Additive Models (GAMs), a complex picture emerged, such that grade level (i.e., kindergarten v. first grade) and subscale type (e.g., Fluency v. Originality) influenced the significance and nature of the relationship (i.e., linear v. nonlinear). In general, as students increased in creativity performance, they demonstrated less academic growth. Future work should explore the underlying mechanisms explaining these relationships to better help students leverage their creative abilities for positive academic gains in the classroom setting.

Impact of UX Internships on Human-computer Interaction Graduate Students: A Qualitative Analysis of Internship Reports

Objectives. Internships can bring a host of professional and academic benefits to students. Then, how do User Experience (UX) internships influence Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) graduate students’ professional and academic growth? What are the challenges experienced by HCI graduate students during internships? We explored these two research questions. Participants. Our study participants were 42 HCI graduate students who completed UX internships. They came from computing and related disciplines, including computer science, information technology, psychology, and design. Some of the participants’ internship titles were Interaction Designer, Design Researcher, UX Programmer, and Business Intelligence Analyst. Study Method. We conducted a thematic analysis on 42 graduate students’ UX internship reports that were collected over 6 years to uncover themes in relation to our two research questions. Findings. As for UX internship benefits, we found that students learned about the workplace culture (e.g., academia vs. industry/government on research design processes) and core UX technical (e.g., research, design, programming) and people skills (e.g., teamwork, empathy toward end-users); they also realized what they wanted in future careers after completing their internships. We also found internship challenges that were related to the internship program (e.g., the availability of internship opportunities), the host organizations (e.g., the quality of mentorship received), and remote working (e.g., difficulty over conducting remote usability testing). Conclusions. We make practical recommendations for HCI educators, UX practitioners, and HCI graduate students on how they can work collaboratively to create a meaningful UX internship experience. These recommendations include researching the host organization prior to internships, providing comprehensive onboarding, and being transparent with internship constraints.

Role of Program Curriculum in Building Social Skills and Sports Coaching in Academic and Career Development Under Sports Humanities and Sociology.

This study focused on the role of program curriculum in building social skills and sports coaching in academic and career development in terms of sports humanities and sociology. Social skills coaching and sports coaching for the students are two significant factors that need to be considered by the universities around the globe to improve the organizational climate, which ultimately lead to better student’s career and academic development. This study utilized data from 308 members of the sports federation enrolled in different programs in the universities in China through a questionnaire for investigating such influencing factors. The data were analyzed using the structural equation modeling (SEM) technique using SmartPLS. This study found a substantial relationship of social skills with academic development and organizational climate. The relationship of sports coaching with organizational climate and career development is also discussed in this study. Furthermore, the organizational climate acts as a partial mediator between sports coaching and career development. However, this study revealed that organizational climate had an insignificant relationship with academic growth and organizational climate did not mediate between social skills coaching and educational development among students. While hiring the sports personnel, universities must consider the coach’s competency using effective methods such as physical tests, preassessments, and psychological tests. Second, the universities in China have to develop a culture of social skills and sports to improve academic and career development.

Understanding Differential Growth During School Years and Summers for Students in Special Education

Under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, schools are required to provide a free appropriate public education to students with disabilities and show that the students are making academic progress. This study compares within- and across-years academic growth from kindergarten to 4th grade for students who were ever in special education (ever-SPED) to students who were never in special education (never-SPED). We use math and reading assessment scores from NWEA’s Growth Research Database. Our dataset contains one cohort of about 4,200 students, assessed up to three times per year for five years. Although ever-SPED students started kindergarten with lower math and reading test scores and grew less in both subjects than never-SPED students during the kindergarten school year, ever-SPED students grew more than never-SPED students during the 1st and 2nd grade school years in math and 1st, 3rd, and 4th grade school years in reading. However, ever-SPED students lost more learning during every summer than never-SPED students. This led the test score disparities between the two to grow from under 0.5 standard deviations in kindergarten to 1.0 standard deviation in 4th grade. These findings suggest that summer learning opportunities are crucial for improving educational outcomes for students with disabilities.

Geographic Distribution, Number, and Types of Papers Published in International Cytopathology Journals in the Last 5.5 Years: A Preliminary Study

Objective: The aim of this study was to explore the geographic distribution and number of papers published in international and Science Citation Index (SCI)-indexed cytology journals based on their country of origin. Materials and Methods: A country-based geographic analysis of studies published over a 5.5-year period from January 2016 to June 2021 in 5 cytopathology journals indexed as SCI and SCI-E with an impact factor higher than 1 (Cancer Cytopathology, Cytopathology, Diagnostic Cytopathology, Acta Cytologica, and CytoJournal) and papers categorized as “original” and “other” was performed. Results: A total of 3,063 papers were found, with 1,466 (47.8%) categorized as “original” papers and 1,597 (52.1%) designated as “other” papers. These papers were submitted from 62 different countries. The five countries with the greatest number of papers were the USA (38.4%), India (16.8%), Japan (7.4%), Italy (5.5%), and Brazil (3.1%). A general subgroup analysis was also performed on the original studies without a country breakdown. Cytomorphological, cytomorphological-immunohistochemical, and molecular assessments compose 38.5%, 45.7%, and 15% of the subgroups, respectively. Conclusion: The number of academic papers originating from developing countries in the field of cytopathology has increased in recent years. Although most scientific papers are produced in developed countries, the rate in these countries is much lower than that in some developing countries as the rate of academic growth in developed countries has stabilized. Despite the widespread and sophisticated implementation of cytology in daily practice in Western European countries outside the UK, such as Germany and the Netherlands, and in Scandinavian countries and other developed countries, such as Australia and Canada, these countries rank in the middle to lower end of countries producing cytology papers. Meanwhile, there has been an increase in the number of cytology papers published by authors from Southern European countries, such as Italy (ranked 4th) and Spain (ranked 6th), and Turkey (ranked 8th). There is a remarkable increase in cytology papers originating from Asia, particularly India, Japan, and China. Summary: We aimed to present a basic survey of the geographic distribution of manuscript submissions to high-impact cytopathology journals and to point out emerging trends in cytology utilization and basic research. However, our results show that the landscape of cytology is changing and suggest geographic regions that are ripe for the production of novel “points of view” and new research findings.

Administrative Challenges Preventing Effective Curriculum Implementation in Public Secondary Schools in Nyamagana District - Mwanza City, Tanzania

Administrative challenges can disrupt effective implementation of curriculum in secondary schools. Literature review shows that many administrative challenges hinder the implementation of curriculum in secondary schools. In order to implement the curriculum effectively, school administrators need to provide support to teachers since they are crucial to ensuring that curriculum is delivered consistently, effectively, and efficaciously to enhance learners’ academic achievement and growth. This study sought to examine the effect of administrative challenges on curriculum implementation in public secondary schools in Nyamagana District – Mwanza City, Tanzania. The study adopted a convergent parallel design under a mixed method research approach and a sample size of 172 respondents. Data were collected using questionnaires and interview guide. Validity and reliability of the instruments were tested and were reliable to be given to the respondents for data collection. The findings of this study revealed that the school administrators face many challenges which make the curriculum not to be implemented effectively. The challenges which were mentioned include: lack of fiscal infrastructure, lack of guidelines for the implementation of the curriculum, insufficient funds, overcrowded classrooms, heavy workloads, teachers’ lack of commitment, complexity of managing curriculum, and school heads’ inability to supervise curriculum delivery. It is recommended that government should provide more funds whenever it rolls out an education innovation so as to enable the schools to effectively implement the innovation. There is also need to conduct seminars and workshops for school administrators to enable them to effectively implement curriculum innovations in secondary schools

Cognitive and academic growth among emergent bilingual children at risk and not at risk for math difficulties

One purpose of this study was to identify cognitive processes within the English (second language [L2]) and Spanish (first language [L1]) language systems that underlie growth in math problem solving among emergent bilingual (EB) children with and without math difficulties (MD). A second purpose was to determine those L1 cognitive processes that play an essential role in predicting math word-problem-solving difficulties. To this end, children (N = 275; children with MD = 90) in Grades 1, 2, and 3 at Wave 1 were administered a battery of math, reading, vocabulary, and cognitive (short-term memory [STM], working memory [WM], rapid naming, and inhibition) measures. The battery of tests was administered again 1 year and 2 years later to the same participants. Three findings were important. First, multilevel logistic modeling suggested that the log-odds of identifying children with MD were best captured by the level of performance on measures of fluid intelligence, Spanish STM, and English WM. Second, the log-odds of identifying children with MD were uniquely related to growth on WM, computation, and number magnitude judgment measures. Finally, the level of performance on L1 measures of reading, calculation, and naming speed and inhibition facilitated the identification of children with MD. In contrast, growth on all Spanish measures, except vocabulary and estimation, increased the log-odds of identifying children with MD. In general, the results suggest that there are constraints or inefficiencies in cognitive processes within and across both language systems that underlie the development of EB children’s MD. The results highlight the importance of the phonological and executive systems of WM as important predictors of EB children’s math problem-solving difficulties.

Middle school students’ perceptions of teacher empathy in Christian schools: A transcendental phenomenological study

Numerous studies have contributed to the theoretical, empirical, and practical understanding of teacher empathy, but few have captured the voices of middle school students to understand their lived experiences; no studies have explored the topic in Christian academies. Grounded in Rogers’ theory of self and subsequent theories about student-centered pedagogy, the intent of the study was to explore the perceptions of teacher empathy as voiced by 10 middle school students. Data collected from individual interviews, a focus group session, and letters written to hypothetical future middle school teachers revealed that middle school students perceived teacher empathy as a relational process that positively impacted their personal and academic growth. A major implication for decision-makers is the necessity to prioritize relational cultures, while implications for teachers include the necessity to build ongoing, nonjudgmental, and transparent relationships that lead to functional, fundamental, and profound empathic opportunities.

Connecting Inquiry, Research, and Technology: The Multigenre Digital Inquiry Project

This article describes research on a Multigenre Digital Inquiry Project (MDIP), a technology-infused project designed to provide an opportunity for students to inquire about a topic of interest and share their research using 21st century technologies. Instead of composing a research paper or literature review, students designed a website with pieces written in multiple genres to share their learning, including at least two pieces created using digital tools. In this article, the authors share the design of the MDIP and how it was implemented in three teacher education courses. Data analysis aimed to understand how pre-service teachers engaged in this project and reflected on their learning. Using themes from the analysis of students’ end-of-semester reflections and memos written about the pieces included in the projects, the authors share how students valued support in various areas including technology, how they expanded their views of writing and genre, and how their experiences illustrated academic, personal, and pedagogical growth. Ultimately, students learned from this challenging, yet rewarding experience. Finally, the authors share suggestions for others interested in incorporating a MDIP in their work.

Learning Environment of Basic Health Sciences in Private (Integrated) versus Public (Traditional Curriculum) Medical Schools during COVID-19

ABSTRACT Background: Educational environment (EE) plays a pivotal role in the academic growth of a medical student. The objective of the study was to compare the perception of a learning environment in Basic Health Sciences by first and second-year MBBS students of private and public medical colleges in Lahore, Pakistan during Covid-19 using a questionnaire. Methods: Data was collected from students (146) through a self-reported questionnaire via Google. dox after obtaining consent. A total score between 151 and 200 was considered excellent. A score between 101 and 150 indicated a positive approach while less than 100 was considered problematic. A score >3.5 for individual items indicate the presence of the specific aspect of the educational environment, whereas, <3 score requires attention. The t-test was used for analysis and p<0.05 was considered significant. Results: Out of 146 students 84(51.21%) were from private medical colleges while 62(42.46%) were from public medical colleges. The students of private medical colleges who follow the integrated curriculum found the learning sessions (27.84±7.40) were more student-centered with supporting online classes (2.75 ± 1.01) (p<0.05). Multiple softwares found that the tutorial sessions improved their problem-solving skills (>2.5). Teachers were helpful in stress management during the pandemic (>3). Proper counselors were employed by the private medical schools to cater to the needs of students who required assistance. Conclusion: A significantly high mean score was obtained from private-sector medical students regarding students’ perception of learning (SPL), students’ perception of teachers (SPT), and students’ academic self-perception (SASP), compared to public medical colleges. Keywords: Learning Environment; Questionnaire; Medical Students; Perception; Integrated.

Academic Identity Development of Asian International Doctoral Students at a Public University – A Reflexive Thematic Analysis

Aim/Purpose: This study explores the development of academic identity among a group of Asian international doctoral students at a U.S. research university in various settings, including interacting with students and faculty members and reflecting on their personal journeys. Background: In 2020-2021, 132, 000 international doctoral students enrolled in U.S. universities – an increase of 71% since 2000. Despite this, relatively little is known about their academic identity development and how acculturative stress affects their academic growth. Methodology: A conceptual framework was constructed to integrate the concepts of acculturative stress and academic identity development. With the premise that academic identity development comprises three strands of intellectual, network, and institutional, the current framework conceptualizes the intersection of acculturative stress in all three strands to explore the tensions of balancing home-host culture values while international doctoral students grow into a new identity. Reflexive thematic analysis was applied to study the narratives of eight Asian international doctoral students and identified four main themes characterizing the participants’ academic identity development under acculturative stress. Contribution: This study contributes to an understudied area of higher education literature, directing the attention of the academic community to a small but growing group of junior academics. When examined in the confluence with acculturative stress, the conceptualization of academic identity is extended to include academics from cultural minorities. Findings: Acculturative stress intersects with all three strands of academic identity development, inhibiting participants’ progress in their doctoral programs. Acculturative stress also makes participants more hesitant to adopt an academic identity. Recommendations for Practitioners: This paper informs leaders and managers at departmental and university levels about cultural inclusiveness in doctoral training programs. Cultural minority students face the challenge of acculturative stress, an issue that distinguishes them from racial or gender minority groups; therefore, simply replicating race or gender inclusion initiatives is unlikely to be an ideal model for a culturally inclusive program. Recommendation for Researchers: The findings of this study indicate that Asian doctoral international students deviate from the commonly accepted view of academic identity in that they do not define intellectual growth strictly in terms of paper-trailed achievements (e.g., number of publications or grants), and they view jobs within and outside academia as equally attractive. Impact on Society: Doctoral training programs at universities are the suppliers of doctoral-level workers for industry. However, some programs, especially in the social sciences and humanities, focus on academic job placements. To broaden the impact on society, educational leaders need to expand the professional development training elements in such programs to prepare doctoral candidates for opportunities outside of academia. Future Research: Other aspects of doctoral training programs could be explored, such as the development of instructor identity and the changes in student identity.

Identifying and prioritizing the components of resilient schools with emphasis on students' academic performance

Background and Aim: By taking measures, schools can provide coping skills and life management tools to help teachers and students to manage daily stress and bring positive effects on students' academic performance and health. Therefore, the current research was aimed at identifying and prioritizing the components of resilient schools. Methods: The method of the current research was a combination (qualitative-quantitative) which was first used with the qualitative method-database analysis and then in the quantitative part, the hierarchical analysis method was used. It was also practical in terms of purpose. The statistical population of this research included faculty members, specialists and school administrators of Kurdistan province. In order to select the sample, 16 people were selected by purposive sampling method. For the validity of the findings, the formal method was used, and for the reliability, the agreement coefficient method between the coders was used, and the value was 0.90. Results: The findings showed that the components of resilient schools include 5 core components and 21 sub-components. Based on this, causal conditions include 4 themes (comprehension of life skills, communication, promotion of social status and development of students' capabilities); contextual conditions including (facilities, teaching-learning process and leadership); Intervening conditions include (salaries and benefits, attention to students' needs); The strategies include (extra-curricular activities, training, support for teachers, development of participation, the appropriateness of the content of textbooks, refreshment) and the consequences include (self-awareness, mental health and promotion of public health). The components, the criterion of learning life skills, provision of extracurricular activities, facilities, rights and benefits, and self-awareness were in high priority compared to other criteria. Conclusion: Therefore, it can be said that paying attention to the mentioned criteria in schools can become an environment in order to strengthen the all-round resilience of teachers and students, and as a result, their professional and academic growth.

Deciphering dimensions of overlapping publications

Proving research efficiency and academic growth by the number of publications flag the researchers to publish more articles from a single dataset. They are crossing into unethical practices such as self-plagiarism, duplicate publication, and other research misconducts, which warrant disciplinary action against them. The thrust of this review is to draw the attention of the authors, reviewers, editors, and readers toward different dimensions of overlapping publications in research. Various guidelines and ethical bodies such as Committee on Publication Ethics and International Committee of Medical Journal Editors were considered for the review. The present review provides an expansive outline of publication overlap available in the literature. The reasons for conducting and problems associated with different types of overlapping publications are identified. Preventive and remedial measures as well as recommendations for authors, editors, and reviewers have been highlighted. Because of the strain to “publish or perish” from the researchers’ end, journals are ending up being flooded with overlapping publications.

Not Allowing a Good Crisis to Go to Waste: Tapping into Transformational Power to Increase Utilization in Public Education as a Result of the Coronavirus

Despite all of the disruption the pandemic introduced into public education, COVID-19 also serves as an invitation for leaders to creatively explore ways to better utilize existing resources for the benefit of all students. The pandemic is the crisis that educational leaders cannot allow to go to waste. Instead of striving merely to return to a pre-pandemic normal, all stakeholders involved in public education should explore ways to better utilize existing resources to support each and every child’s academic growth. In this call to action, we encourage public education stakeholders to work toward maximizing the utilization of time, facilities, funding, personnel, and instructional materials. We believe that this focus on maximizing utilization will result in the necessary transformational power to change the system of public education and will have a far greater impact on the improvement of public education than efforts focused on curriculum and instruction reform. This is not to say that curriculum and instruction are not important; rather, the systemic transformation needed represents the foundation of all that happens in public education.

Differential return on investment: Academic growth in mathematics and reading based on initial performance.

Students vary in their initial achievement when they enter school and their rate of academic growth as they move through school. These differences have implications for classroom instruction and educational policy. Although previous research has examined initial achievement and growth differences, a gap remains in understanding how initial level of achievement interacts with subsequent growth as children move through school. Using Vygotsky's zone of proximal development (ZPD) and return on investment as theoretical grounding, this registered report examined how students' initial academic performance relative to their school predicts their subsequent academic achievement. The stage 1 accepted registered report is available at https://osf.io/9zmak/. Specifically, we tracked the achievement of a cohort of students who started at or above their school's mean at the beginning of third grade and tested a range of hypotheses regarding their achievement and growth as well as which students showed the greatest gains from their time in school. Using a large database of student academic achievement in the United States, this registered report included de-identified data from all students from fall 2014 to spring 2017 in grades three through five from the ten US states with the highest participation for the Northwest Evaluation Association's Measures of Academic Progress (MAP®) - a computer adaptive test of academic achievement in mathematics and reading. Because the MAP is taken at least twice per school year, up to six scores were included on mathematics and reading achievement for effective samples of approximately 220,000 students. We built separate reading and mathematics three-level piecewise longitudinal hierarchical linear models (student repeated measures, nested within students, nested within schools) to model student growth from the beginning of third grade to the end of fifth grade (i.e., three academic years and two summers). For both mathematics and reading, average student achievement growth slowed as they progressed from third through fifth grade. From there, the findings diverged. In mathematics, student growth was mostly similar across achievement levels and grades from third through fifth. However, in reading, above-average students demonstrated slower growth than average students during the school year but faster growth during the summer. Also of note, at the beginning of third grade, the highest achieving students outscored average students in their school by more than 2 years in mathematics and 3 years in reading. Our results may be able to be explained via a ZPD model, which posits development only occurs when students are placed in appropriately challenging environments. In mathematics, the observed pattern of relatively consistent growth across achievement levels suggests average students were just as likely to be in their ZPD as higher achieving students. In reading, as initial achievement increased, student reading growth slowed, which suggests the higher the initial achievement, the less likely students were to be in their ZPD. If a goal of education is for students to learn new things, our results suggest existing school offerings in reading are not meeting that goal equitably for students across the performance spectrum. Differential growth patterns should be considered when designing learning experiences for students who enter with a wide range of prior mastery.

Relationship between Sense of Coherence and Procrastination among a Group of Undergraduate Dental Students in Chennai City - An Observational Study

Background: Procrastination is considered problematic when it affects normal day-to-day functioning. It can serve as a deterrent among undergraduate dental students both for their academic and career growth. Behaviour modifications are required to change this negative behaviour and Sense of Coherence is one such approach. Aim: To assess the relationship between Sense of Coherence and Procrastination among a group of undergraduate dental students in Chennai city. Material and Methods: A cross sectional questionnaire study was conducted among 358 undergraduate dental students. Thirteen item Sense of Coherence scale and Lay’s Procrastination scale were used to collect data about Sense of Coherence and Procrastination among undergraduate dental students respectively, using google forms. One-way ANOVA and Independent T test were used to test for difference in mean scores between groups based on year of study and gender, respectively. Pearsons correlation coefficient followed by Simple Linear Regression was performed to test for association between Sense of Coherence and Procrastination. Results: The overall mean Sense of Coherence score of the study participants was 49.52 ± 8.13. The overall mean Procrastination score of the study participants was 56.58 ± 10.02. Pearson’s Correlation Coefficient revealed a negative correlation (r = -.255) between Sense of Coherence and Procrastination (p = .000) indicating that with an increase in Sense of Coherence, Procrastination decreases. In tandem, the third year students with lowest Sense of Coherence score showed highest procrastination. Conclusion: Procrastination is negatively associated with Sense of Coherence and hence behaviour modification interventions based on Sense of Coherence are required, to be customized and incorporated in dental curriculum to reduce procrastination among undergraduate dental students.

Global health research funding applications: brain drain under another name?

In 2019, the UK was one of the largest funders of global health research. It had a government manifesto commitment to spend 0·7% of gross national income on official development assistance (ODA).1 Much of this ODA funding was channelled to enable global health research, with an aim of improving lives and livelihoods in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) by providing new evidence for effective interventions and improving research and research capacity.2 This extra funding ensured that global health was an academic growth area.