Doctoral Degrees In Education Research Articles

The education of international educators: A personal view

Background“Que voyager c’est apprendre à vivre”. This is how Montaigne starts one his essays, “traveling is learning to live”. It was certainly my story. And this story begins in the 1970s. I went to the U.S. for graduate education, my interests have always been the psychology of learning and its practical implications for education. During my doctoral studies, I had the opportunity to engage in international projects led by my thesis advisor, Robert Morgan. At the time he was one of the principal advisors of the educational reform in Korea. In the early seventies there was great optimism about the potential of "new technologies," including emerging ones like Educational Radio, Educational TV, and Computer-based education. Ronald Gass was leading CERI – a Center for Educational Innovation at the OCDE, sponsored a tour which provided me with a taste of educational developments in Europe and also gave me to opportunity to evaluate a distance-learning program in Portugal. This is how I entered the world of international education.Returning to Brazil after completing my doctorate in the USA – I think I was the first Brazilian to obtain a doctoral degree in Education - I actively participated in various initiatives in Brazil between 1973 and 1986, including the Ministry of Education, in the area of distance education, in the Ministry of Planning, in the areas of Science and Technology and in a special non-portfolio Ministry in charge of “De-bureaucratization”. These experiences in my own country provided me with valuable insights into the possibilities and limitations of change, innovation, technology, and reforms in general.Three significant experiences shaped my understanding of change processes and their impact.First and more important, I learned that implementing educational technology projects was an attractive proposition, innovations are always welcome, but scaling up and interfering with regular school operations remained a chimera.Second, I witnessed the launching and implementation of policies and institutions in the fields of science and technology, the major push came from the Ministry of Planning. This effort taught me the importance of a strong start, selecting competent leaders and individuals with appropriate credentials. I also learned to recognize the significance of institution-building as a foundation for sustainable change.A third, and pivotal experience, was related to large-scale administrative reform.A special ministry was created to simplify rules and regulations in a highly bureaucratic and formalistic culture. I learned how power, bureaucracy and corruption were deeply interwined. I also learned that while initiating change may be relatively straightforward, the resilience of bureaucracies often undermines the best intentions. Bringing about and sustaining change requires addressing both structural and attitudinal transformations. Leadership, continuity, and accountability are essential. Chance can also play a role.These experiences led me to delve into the study of organizations and organizational change. A post-doc at Stanford Business School gave me the opportunity to study, learn, and exchange ideas with various experts on the sociology of organizations, such as Jim March (bounded rationality), Richard Scott (formal organizations), Judith Tendler (Inside Foreign Aid), Aaron Wildawsky (Implementation), and John Meyer (Formal Structure as Myth and Ceremony), among many others. Despite the warnings, knowledge, and experience, hope prevailed.Despite being based in Brazil, throughout this period, I was engaged in numerous consultancy activities over the years, collaborating with organizations such as the Organization of American States (OAS), UNESCO, OECD, and USAID in various countries. I learned a great deal from Dean Jamison and François Orivel about economics and cost/effectiveness studies, and also learned how evidence played such a minor role in actual decision-making. I also learned a great deal about implementation of large-scale projects in several consulting missions with Emile McAnany and John Mayo. Throughout these experiences, I learned far more than I contributed.Just before joining the World Bank in 1986, I sought to understand how Brazil interacted with the institution. In a conversation with the Brazilian Minister of Planning at the time, I obtained an extremely valuable piece of information: Brazil was primarily interested in obtaining "hard currency" rather than specific projects. This revelation made me realize that the logic and intentions of the local government differed significantly from those of financiers or even sectoral ministries. This early insight made me aware of the limitations of project-based change. With this background, I could not be accused of naivety. And so, my international journey continued.

Doctoral Student Perceptions of Faculty Advisors: Four Supportive Behaviors to Promote Doctoral Completion

The number of doctoral recipients per year in the United States has grown considerably, yet on average, half of all students do not persist to degree completion or far exceed the expected completion timeline. Attrition and extended time to degree negatively impact both doctoral students and institutions and costs each time, money, and effort. Advisor-advisee relationship quality significantly affects degree completion. This study explores experiences of 17 full-time working professionals who had recently completed a doctoral degree in education within 6 consecutive years at a regionally accredited institution in the United States. Our findings revealed four faculty advisor behaviors that contribute to doctoral completion: encouragement, accessibility, dependability, and expertise. We offer recommendations for advisors to improve the student doctoral journey.

핵심역량 진단도구 개발 연구

The purpose of this study is to develop a core competency diagnostic tool. As for the contents of the study, the core competency diagnostic questions were developed and the reliability and validity of the core competency diagnostic questions were analyzed. The research results are as follows. First, 504 diagnostic questions for core competency were produced. Second, university professors and related experts developed 216 preliminary questions out of 504 diagnostic questions. Third, the preliminary questions were revised and supplemented by conducting a facial validity assessment of the preliminary questions for graduates with a doctoral degree in education. Fourth, as a result of analyzing the reliability and validity of the core competency diagnostic tool, it was found that there were no problems with reliability and validity.

Repicturing the Restoration: New Art to Expand Our Understanding

Repicturing the Restoration: New Art to Expand Our Understanding

Editor’s Introduction

The Journal of Minority Achievement, Creativity, and Leadership (JMACL) serves as a lens that brings into focus the myriad experiences and perspectives of minorities across the P–20 educational continuum and beyond. JMACL is bricolage and each author, luminary, practitioner, scholar, and thought-leader is bricoleur. Through their critical insight, contributors provide a piece of the structure this publication is building—a structure that provides shelter for those who seek a home among contemporaries who share a zeal to foreground best practices, narratives, and frameworks that underscore asset-based approaches related to the achievement and success of minority populations. While most future volumes will include unsolicited peer-reviewed submissions, this first issue includes seminal scholars, thought-leaders, and researchers, each of whom contributes a novel perspective on scholarship related to minority achievement, creativity, and leadership.Caroline Sotello Viernes Turner, PhD, in “‘I can only put together thoughts filed away in my brain: Who would pay me to do that?’” highlights the assets and critical skills she received in her childhood that helped her be resilient throughout her career and life. Her scholarly personal narrative provides an opportunity to reflect and share recollections about creativity, achievement, and leadership.Kakali Bhattacharya, PhD, in “Mentoring from the Margins” uses a critical and de/colonial focus to trace the unfolding of her experiences, as a Desi woman, mentoring two Black women as they pursued doctoral degrees in education. Using personal narratives, she explores the intersections of anti-Blackness, white supremacy, and colonizing structures of higher education that create and maintain power differences. Mentoring in this terrain requires space-making that centers minoritized perspectives, in this case knowledge construction by Black women.Don Ambrose, PhD, in “Interdisciplinary Exploration Clarifying Barriers Hindering Minority Achievement,” provides clarity and illuminates contextual challenges and opportunities that minority populations encounter, specifically students of color. He asserts that these investigations are key in further strengthening the work of scholars who study the barriers that influence education of minority populations.William A. Smith, PhD, Jeremy D. Franklin, PhD, and Man Hung, PhD, in “The Impact of Racial Microaggressions Across Educational Attainment for African Americans,” examine, empirically, the role that racial microaggressions have in predicting African American college graduates’ general happiness and job satisfaction at three levels of educational attainment.Terrell L. Strayhorn, PhD, in “Measuring the Relation between Sense of Belonging, Campus Leadership, and Academic Achievement for African American Students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs): A ‘Gender Equity’ Analysis,” measures the relationship between sense of belonging, campus leadership, and academic achievement for African Americans at HBCUs, paying close attention to potential sex differences or “gendered effects.”Donna Y. Ford, PhD, Joy Lawson Davis, EdD, Kenneth T. Dickson, MEd, Michelle Frazier Trotman Scott, PhD, Tarek C. Grantham, PhD, James L. Moore III, PhD, and Gloria D. Taradash, PhD, in “Evaluating Gifted Education Programs Using an Equity-Based and Culturally Responsive Checklist to Recruit and Retain Underrepresented Students of Color,” provide an innovative and practical article that focuses on ways to support administrators who seek viable ways to frame and maintain equitable GATE programs in schools.Our desire is for JMACL to serve as liminal space, allowing the reader to construct meaning in the “in between,” as border pedagogy, providing context as to how to dismantle rigid lines of demarcation, and as an intersectional axis highlighting the simultaneity of competing identities.

Mentoring from the Margins

ABSTRACT Using a critical and de/colonial focus, in this article, I trace the unfolding of my experiences, as a Desi woman, mentoring two Black women pursuing doctoral degrees in education. Using personal narratives, I explore the intersections of anti-Blackness, white supremacy, and colonizing structures of higher education that create and maintain power differences. I map the individual and entangled trauma minoritized people experience in academia, arguing for a radical interconnectivity that creates pathways for understanding resistance and illuminates possibilities for freedom. I argue that Black women’s knowledge needs to be valued, taken seriously, and engaged with thoughtfulness and care for legitimizing and normalizing Black ontoepistemologies. Mentoring in this terrain requires space-making that centers minoritized perspectives, in this case knowledge construction by Black women.

Moving Past Disconnected Hurdles

This article argues for the need to significantly adjust the process and focus of the educational thesis and dissertation to better match the preparation and needs of students who are practitioners in order to help these students become stronger and better educators and leaders. To that end, the article presents innovative approaches to improve experiences for graduate students who are developing, conducting and completing master’s degree theses and doctoral dissertations in the field of education.
 The vast majority of students who pursue master’s or doctoral degrees in education do not intend to become researchers or university faculty. Rather, most of these students are looking to improve their skills as teachers and educational leaders, and will likely never conduct a major research effort beyond the thesis or dissertation. While these students have a great deal of practical experience in their field, most of them have had little or no exposure to graduate level research, scholarly literature or academic writing. Recognizing that research skills including data collection and analysis, and academic writing are essential skills for all graduate students including those in educational programs, these skills alone are inadequate in preparing educators for the realities they face as they work to conduct multi-tiered and multi-faceted research that will affect positive change and contribute to the field to improve overall student success. For many of these students the thesis and dissertation, while a significant requirement for the degree, are viewed as major “hurdles” that are too often disconnected from the realities and complexities of the classroom and administrative office. 
 Appropriate theoretical and conceptual frameworks are used to examine how the educational thesis and dissertation process can be improved to better serve the needs of educational practitioners. This includes the use of Role AcquisitionTheory (Thornton & Nardi, 1975) to examine and help facilitate the intrinsic change process in graduate students in education during the thesis and dissertation process. Transformative Learning Framework (Cranton, 2016) is used to better understand and advance developmental changes and scaffolding that are necessary to examine problematic frames of reference, openly reflect, and to emotionally change from the experience. The Loss/Momentum Framework (RP Group, 2012) is used in two separate ways; first to scrutinize specific institutional barriers and supports that exist in graduate and doctoral programs in education as well throughout the university that influence the process of completing the thesis and dissertation. Second, it is used to identify and examine individual characteristics, skills, and attributes of these students that serve as either barriers or assets to completing a meaningful thesis or dissertation.
 Practical recommendations for improving the educational thesis and dissertation process are provided, and mentoring and strategic coaching approaches discussed.

Perceptions After Completing the Degree: A Qualitative Case Study of Select Higher Education Doctoral Graduates

Aim/Purpose: Limited research exists on the perceived value that a doctoral degree has on higher education administrators’ goals; therefore, this collective case study had two purposes. The first was to assess qualitatively the perceptions of four doctorate-holding higher education administrators to explore the potential value associated with their degrees, and the second was to determine whether they perceived that their degree attainments influenced the achievement of their professional goals, if at all. Background: Understanding goal attainment and the value associated with obtaining a doctoral degree is important to recognize the needs of doctoral students and to inform how to support degree-seeking professionals in achieving their professional goals. Building upon the conceptual model of doctoral value, as defined by Bryan and Guccione (2018), the researchers also utilized Becker’s (1964) human capital theory as the framework for understanding the perceptions of select administrative professionals who have completed their doctoral degrees in higher education. Methodology: Because this was a collective case study, four doctorate-holding higher education administrators were selected, through convenience sampling, to engage in a formal semi-structured face-to-face interview. Interview responses were evaluated using ethnographic analysis (i.e., domain analysis, taxonomic analysis, and componential analysis). Contribution: Findings from this research can be used to better understand the perceptions of graduates who earned a doctoral degree in education, particularly with an increase in the number of doctoral degrees in that field. The results from this study align with findings from previous studies. Findings: The ethnographic analysis of the data indicated that the administrators perceived their doctoral degree as a way to advance professionally (e.g., career opportunities and research publication) and as a way to improve personally (e.g., increased confidence and becoming a role model). Two domains emerged: attainment of goals and perceptions of doctoral degree value. The taxonomic analysis revealed that the attainment of goals included personal and professional goals. Lastly, the componential analysis led to the discovery of nine attributes associated with obtaining a doctoral degree. Recommendations for Practitioners: Administrators in higher education degree programs should understand the needs of their students while they are participating in doctoral studies. By knowing what doctoral students expect to gain after obtaining a doctoral degree, doctoral-program administrators might consider tailoring courses and support programs to meet doctoral student needs. Recommendation for Researchers: Additional longitudinal studies should be undertaken to understand better how doctoral graduates view the value of their degree many years later. Do their perceptions change over time, or are they solidified? Impact on Society: With an increasing number of individuals obtaining doctoral degrees in higher education, departments, colleges, and universities need to understand whether graduates find that their degree has been useful. Because there is a demand for agencies to emphasize skills and work-related training, the perceived value of the degree can inform policymakers on changes in curriculum and programming to increase the perceived value of the doctoral degree. Future Research: Future research should expand upon the number of students who are interviewed, and students in other academic programs may be interviewed to understand similarities and differences. Longitudinal studies should be conducted to understand if the perception of degree value changes over time.

Factors Leading Educators to Pursue a Doctorate Degree to Meet Professional Development Needs

Aim/Purpose: This study investigates the professional development needs of educators with a Master’s degree and seeking or having a doctoral degree in education. Background: Understanding the professional development needs of educators is important for meeting these needs. The literature focuses on post-bachelor education but does not address professional development and doctoral degree needs. Methodology: Educators with a Master’s degree in education seeking or having completed a doctoral degree participated in one 30 minute semi-structured interview. Contribution: This research can be used as a guide for how to support Master’s-level educators seeking doctoral degrees. Findings: Master’s level students earning a doctorate degree in education found professional development satisfied through their programs when experiential learning opportunities were provided and in-depth institutional support. Recommendations for Practitioners: Educators seeking a doctorate degree in education to meet their professional development needs should seek out higher education opportunities that include mentorships and experiential learning opportunities. Recommendation for Researchers: Further research is necessary to understand how additional professional development needs can be met in higher education and in the creation of successful professional development partnerships. Impact on Society: Required teacher professional development can increase classroom performance if necessary educator needs are met. Future Research: Additional research on professional development successes in schools partnering with higher education institutions potentially for a dual purpose of obtaining doctorate degrees may provide an invaluable increase in classroom performance.

Self-Direction in Learning of EdD Candidates at a Small, Private Institution

Aim/Purpose: Many researchers have investigated factors related to why doctoral candidates do or do not persist in a doctoral program, yet, literature was not found where researchers investigated the relationship between self-directed learning and currently enrolled EdD candidates. The authors sought to understand EdD candidates’ self-direction in learning at the onset of their EdD program. The findings informed program and course instructional strategies of the EdD Program and helped to determine what could be done to help candidates be more successful in the program. Background: The purpose of this study was to investigate the self-directed learning of doctoral candidates in one EdD program in a private university in a southeastern state. Adults are by nature self-directed individuals and it would be reasonable to assume that adult doctoral candidates might exhibit some level of self-directed learning. Methodology: The PRO SDLS (Stockdale, 2003) was employed to measure self-directed learning among a population of 110 EdD candidates currently enrolled in a private university in a southeastern state. The following variables were also included in the analysis: year of enrollment, program concentration, hour of enrollment, age, and gender. A series of one-way ANOVAs were used to compare the differences of each independent variable on each measure of the dependent variable. Contribution: The findings informed program and course instructional strategies of the EdD Program and helped to determine what could be done to help candidates be more successful in the program. The findings not only benefitted this individual EdD Program, but also additionally will add to the body of knowledge on encouraging self-directed learning among EdD candidates. Findings: The researchers found that all candidates, regardless of variables investigated, had similar levels of self-directed learning, above average for adults, which is typical of doctoral students. While no specific variable was statistically significantly different, a few variables neared the significance level of 0.05, in exhibiting even higher levels of self-directed learning. It was found that females demonstrated slightly higher control, a sub-factor of self-directed learning, and candidates in the higher education program demonstrated higher motivation, another sub-factor of self-directed learning. Recommendations for Practitioners: Practitioners would benefit by incorporating the following steps to increase self-directed learning among doctoral candidates in education: facilitating the dissertation process earlier, gradual release into dissertation hours, writing competency based curriculum for earlier writing skills, and fostering collaborative grouping within the program for social connection. Recommendation for Researchers: Self-directed learning is only one possible reason for whether or not students may or may not complete a doctoral degree in education. Other variables may influence, possibly even stronger, the candidate’s ability to complete the doctoral degree. Impact on Society: Adults are self-directed individuals. Adults returning to school are found to have higher readiness for self-directed learning. Fostering this self-directed learning through social collaboration in a doctoral program can help doctoral candidates be more successful. Future Research: Additional factors may exist that influence the completion of a doctoral degree: life circumstances, job change, health, relationships with faculty, etc. These factors could be measured in conjunction with self-directed learning to gain a more comprehensive picture as to why some students do not finish their doctoral degrees in education.

Costruire l’intercultura in tempi difficili. La proposta pensiero-vita di Chiara Lubich

The thought and action of Chiara Lubich are very important for intercultural education. She has given us many theoretical and practical tools – reinforced by the testimony lived with the greatest coherence – to learn to be intercultural as people, but also as groups, as specific collective and cultural identities. Her experience can be told as an experience of education in dialogue, a micro-macro dialogue that unfolds from the immediate challenge of interpersonal relationships to widen to the areas of political, intercultural, interreligious relations. This article analyses some aspects of today's multicultural reality, which challenges the world of education, and – assuming the demanding perspective of interculturality – examines some of Chiara's proposals, which are based on the idea of a person-dialogue, person-relationship and intercultural person. These proposals, methodologically essential in the transition from reality-challenge to the goals indicated by interculturality, are effectively communicated by Lubich in his fundamental book “The Art of Loving”, in which she presents the secrets for interpersonal, social, intercultural relations, the inescapable attitudes that are configured as “concrete love”. Some passages are here quoted that present the pedagogical principles of reference according to Chiara Lubich, taken from the lecture entitled “Uomo-Mondo” (1972), from the lecture held in Paris on December 17, 1996, when she received the UNESCO prize for “Peace Education”, from the lectio magistralis held in Washington on 10 th November 2000 (Honorary doctoral Degree in Education from The Catholic University of America).

Budowanie procesów międzykulturowych w trudnych czasach. Propozycja według myśli i dzieła Chiary Lubich

The thought and action of Chiara Lubich are very important for intercultural education. She has given us many theoretical and practical tools – reinforced by the testimony lived with the greatest coherence – to learn to be intercultural as people, but also as groups, as specific collective and cultural identities. Her experience can be told as an experience of education in dialogue, a micro-macro dialogue that unfolds from the immediate challenge of interpersonal relationships to widen to the areas of political, intercultural, interreligious relations. This article analyses some aspects of today’s multicultural reality, which challenges the world of education, and – assuming the demanding perspective of interculturality – examines some of Chiara’s proposals, which are based on the idea of a person-dialogue, person-relationship and intercultural person. These proposals, methodologically essential in the transition from reality-challenge to the goals indicated by interculturality, are effectively communicated by Lubich in his fundamental book “The Art of Loving”, in which she presents the secrets for interpersonal, social, intercultural relations, the inescapable attitudes that are configured as “concrete love”. Some passages are here quoted that present the pedagogical principles of reference according to Chiara Lubich, taken from the lecture entitled “Uomo-Mondo” (1972), from the lecture held in Paris on December 17, 1996, when she received the UNESCO prize for “Peace Education”, from the lectio magistralis held in Washington on 10 th November 2000 (Honorary doctoral Degree in Education from The Catholic University of America).

La formación inicial de maestros como espacio de intervención política de la formación ciudadana

La formación ciudadana tiene que ver con la manera en que el sujeto se erige como ciudadano, mediante un proceso de apropiación de elementos políticos, jurídicos y sociales que posibilitan su participación activa y sentida en la sociedad. En este artículo se particulariza su dimensión política desde la formación inicial de maestros, pues sus dinámicas y su finalidad potencian su desarrollo y representan un escenario multidireccional que permite realimentar a las instituciones educativas a través de la práctica pedagógica. Así lo evidencian los resultados de la investigación cualitativa de tipo descriptivo, que siguió el método etnográfico y que tuvo como propósito analizar un seminario de práctica pedagógica, desde una dimensión política, y desarrollar un proceso oportuno y eficaz en la formación ciudadana de los estudiantes de una licenciatura en educación infantil. Este estudio fue desarrollado en el marco del Doctorado en Educación, de la Universidad de Antioquia, recibió el aval de algunas instituciones y finalizó en el año 2017.

What Women Know: Perceptions of Seven Female Superintendents

An anomalous concentration of female superintendents in mostly rural South Texas prompted this inquiry. South Texas faces critical shortages in personnel due to impending retirement and turnover of existing school administrators and superintendents (Wesson & Marshall, 2012). It is difficult to recruit and retain the best talent necessary to solve tough school improvement challenges""high dropout rates, high poverty, low student achievement, and complex multi-cultural issues""in high needs, Hispanic majority, primarily rural school districts (Trevino Jr., Braley, Brown, & Slate, 2008; Wesson & Marshall, 2012). Krüger (2008) stated women are stronger educational leaders than men. Females seek and obtain leadership credentials for the express purpose of impacting education for students (Young & McLeod, 2001). Schools of all sizes and levels with female administrators achieved higher student success than schools with male administrators, according to a 7000 campus Texas study, in the 2006-2007 academic year (Roser, Brown, & Kelsey, 2009). In every ethnic group, women earn more doctoral degrees in education than men; women earn bachelors and masters degrees in education in proportion to their representation in the field; and women have more years of teaching experience than men (Shakeshaft, Brown, Irby, Grogan, & Ballenger, 2007). Women also outnumber men in education administration preparation programs (Petrie & Lindauer, 2001). Yet women are not ascending to the superintendency in proportion to their representation in the education profession (Shakeshaft et al., 2007). This naturalistic study of seven female superintendents in South Texas, including leaders in large and small rural districts, illuminated perceptions and experiences of female school leadership through portraiture and lent insight into common themes of aspiration and motivation.

신규 여성 박사들의 경력개발에 관한 탐색적 연구 -교육계열 전공자를 중심으로

신규 여성 박사들의 경력개발에 관한 탐색적 연구 -교육계열 전공자를 중심으로

Learning conversations as reflective practice

This article presents some recent experiences of reflective practice within a UK university business school by two lecturers who are currently reading for doctoral degrees in education, and is partly based on material presented at ‘The First International Theorising Education Conference’ at the University of Stirling in June 2010. It describes how, having agreed to meet regularly to discuss the implications of postmodern educational theories for their practice, the authors set about holding a series of ‘learning conversations’, each beginning with a presentation and discussion of a reading from educational theory or philosophy of education and with no further agenda than a ‘live encounter with the other’. The paper includes a review of some useful texts dealing with both the practicalities and some theoretical frameworks within which to locate reflective practice. There follows a discussion of the rationale for using unconventional ways of presenting (and re-presenting) experiences of this kind of activity. The authors use a layered text technique to illustrate one way of doing this, and to present (re-present) parts of learning conversations held between January and June 2010. The essential claim of this paper is that while a great deal of literature on reflective practice seems to concentrate on ‘reflection on practice’, there is also a need for discussions about the interface between educational theory and pedagogical practice as a particular means of moving ourselves beyond the limits of a self-referential context into a more open-ended and critical space in which we learn to name our experience in new ways.

University of Alabama School of Medicine

University of Alabama School of Medicine

Ponce School of Medicine

Ponce School of Medicine

Students and Video Game Players

Some studies show that video games are used in teaching (Foreman 2004) and others report on players learning through their leisure activities online (Perriault 1987; Berry 2007), as formerly was the case through ordinary games. Even though the latter have been recognized by many researchers as leisure activities (Natkin 2003; Lafrance 2006), they were already used as learning tools (Brougere 1995, 2004). However, since the beginning of time, play has been more or less directly opposed to (Caillois 1967; Henriot 1989). The term work can be related to the notion of school for children and adolescents, and to academic for young adults. But, if for the former, parental and teacher supervision proves to be sufficient so that game playing does not encroach too much upon school work, what are the effects when institutional and parental frameworks are less evident? Such is the situation in which most university students who play video games find themselves. In fact, recent studies mention the risk that these young adults who play on the Internet could potentially put less effort into their studies to spend more time playing on-line games (Valleur 2003; Griffiths 2004). This paper presents part of the results of a study being done for a doctoral degree in Education, using a psychoanalytically-oriented clinical approach (Blanchard-Laville, Chaussecourte, Hatchuel et Pechberty, 2005). My research analyzes students' psychological investment in video games and their game-study relationship. The objective is to show, through the in-depth analysis of three non-directive interviews done with student gamers, how video games are experienced as leisure tools, but also as learning tools at the same time. For the first two students, their intensive use of video games, which became their object of study for a time, was transformed into what we can call addictive. However, in the end this particular experience of video games permitted them to better come to know themselves. As regards the third student, video games are for her as for her mother informal tools for leisure and learning which do not conflict with her studies.

Professional preparation of individuals who provide genetic counseling services

An unprecedented increase has occurred in demand for genetic counseling services during the current decade. This study examined the complex issue of who currently provides genetic counseling services and the professional preparation of these personnel. A self-administered questionnaire was mailed to 325 genetic counseling professionals in the southeastern United States who were members of the Southeast Regional Genetics Group (SERGG), National Society of Genetic Counselors, or American Society of Human Genetics States; 204 completed the questionnaire (63%). Seventy percent of respondents were female and 30% were male. Thirty percent of respondents held MD degrees; nine physicians held PhD degrees. Most physicians were male. Thirty-two percent of respondents held master's degrees in genetic counseling; five counselors held PhD degrees. Twenty-three percent of respondents were nurses; eight nurses held master's degrees. Three percent of respondents were social workers. Individuals with other degrees, such as an associate of science in medical technology and a doctoral degree in education, also provided genetic counseling. Genetic counseling typically involved a team effort, consisting mainly of physicians and genetic counselors. Most respondents reported college coursework in human genetics, supervised training, and seminar/workshop training. Thirty percent reported college coursework in counseling techniques, supervised training, and seminar/workshop training. Policy recommendations are offered concerning professional preparation of genetic counselors.