Extracurricular Experiences Research Articles

Extra Curricular Life Of Overseas Student-Teachers

Overseas student-teaching is becoming increasingly popular among American college students. Unfortunately, relatively little is known empirically regarding how these students find their experiences—academically or outside of the teaching classroom. Consequently, the present research study used rigorous qualitative methods in order to appraise extra-curricular experiences from a sample of 13 students who completed their student teaching overseas. Results showed students to experience surface relationships with nationals and deeper connections with faculty. While the student teachers reported participating in various excursions alongside nationals, they generally categorized their connections with these people on surface levels, explaining that relationships were hindered by language barrier inhibitions. In contrast, when our participants described their interactions with faculty, they spoke in terms of meaningful connections and bonding experiences.

Effect of Extracurricular Geriatric Medicine Training: A Model Based on Student Reflections on Healthcare Delivery to Elderly People

Although many professional and accrediting bodies have identified competencies for medical students pertaining to caring for older patients, including understanding the basics of the healthcare delivery system, the highly structured curriculum in medical school provides few opportunities for these competencies to be achieved. One possible solution is to let students participate in geriatrics-related extracurricular educational and clinical activities and ask them to reflect on their experiences. This article presents the results of a qualitative analysis of student reflections from participating in such a program implemented at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. One hundred thirty of 321 student journal entries (collected over 3 academic years) containing any mention of the healthcare system were qualitatively analyzed. The themes and resulting model that emerged from the data includes three distinct levels of healthcare delivery: individual, organizational, and systems. Each level is presented and explained using illustrative student quotes. As a whole, the model indicates that students in this innovative extracurricular experience gained important knowledge about how medical care is provided to elderly people. The model developed may provide additional structure for future medical students as they reflect on their early encounters with the complex health and social forces affecting the quality of care received by older adults.

Nonacademic Characteristics of Dental School Applicants

The purpose of this study was to characterize the average dental school applicant's participation in four nonacademic areas: shadowing, extracurricular activities, volunteer experiences, and research. Demographic, academic, and nonacademic information was compared for 12 percent of all applicants to U.S. dental schools in 2005. Applicants had an average GPA of 3.23 and DAT Academic Average of 18.6. Applicants participated in an average of 3.7 extracurricular activities, 3.2 volunteer experiences, and 0.8 research projects. The average nondental employee applicant shadowed 172 hours. As shadowing hours increased, GPA declined. While academically similar, women reported significantly greater (p<.05) participation in all four nonacademic areas than males. Overall, Hispanic students reported the most shadowing hours and had the greatest percentage of parents as dentists, while black students had the least in both areas. Black students reported the most extracurricular activities. More than 90 percent of all applicants participated in three or four of the major nonacademic areas. Participation in extracurricular activities, volunteer experiences, and research projects was correlated; however, there was no relationship between shadowing hours and the other areas. Applicants with the most shadowing tended to be less academically qualified. The typical applicant reported a total of approximately eight extracurricular, volunteer, and research endeavors and 170 or more hours of shadowing. Results of this study can assist dental admissions committees in making qualitative comparisons between applicants with similar academic qualifications and aid health career counselors in advising predental students.

Extracurricular experience and graduates’ labour market entry

Les etudiants de l’enseignement superieur consacrent une part importante de leur temps a des activites extracurriculaires benevoles et recreatives. L’article traite du point de savoir si ces activites influencent ou non l’acces ulterieur des diplomes a l’emploi. L’analyse s’appuie sur une enquete aupres d’environ 400 diplomes du superieur en France, en majorite de niveau master. Les donnees de l’enquete sont analysees par methode de regression. Les resultats montrent que l’activite extracurriculaire exerce une influence significative sur l’acces a l’emploi. Les activites hors cursus discriminent non pas entre ceux qui les ont pratiquees et les autres, mais au sein meme du groupe des anciens pratiquants, et engendrent differents types de parcours d’acces a l’emploi. En decoulent des implications strategiques pour les etudiants qui choisissent de s’engager dans ces activites, et des perspectives d’action pour les institutions d’orientation ainsi que pour les etablissements d’enseignement superieur.

Moral Developmental Consistency? Investigating Differences and Relationships Among Academic Majors

Previous study has asserted that education majors score lower on assessments of moral development than do other majors. However, important factors associated with moral development have been overlooked. This study investigated the degree to which moral developmental differences exist by accounting for some of the oversights observed in previous study. Samples of 51, 38, and 62 college students in education, psychology, and other majors were addressed in terms of their moral judgment development, moral sensitivity, nonprejudice, and attitudes about human rights and civil liberties. Although some minor trends are seen in favor of psychology majors, results support that moral developmental differences are not as dire as previous study portends. The authors recommend efforts to account for the individual, academic, and extracurricular experiences associated with majors and universities so that continued understanding of the moral development and functioning of their students can occur.

An Emerging Professional Identity: Influences on the Achievement of High-Ability First-Generation College Females

Using a qualitative interview design, this study examined factors contributing to the academic achievement of gifted first-generation college females. Findings indicated an emerging professional identity as the primary influence on achievement. The participants' high ability served as a passport to accessing coursework, extracurricular experiences, and high-achieving friends who helped shape this emerging professional identity. Personal characteristics developed from their working-class backgrounds, including independence and a strong work ethic, were also found to be influential. Finally, the participants expressed a desire to explore their identities, even when this meant forming values different from those of their families and hometown communities. Implications of these findings are discussed, including suggestions for future research and recommendations for parents, counselors, and educators of gifted first-generation college females.

A universidade como espaço promotor de qualidade de vida: vivências e expressões dos alunos de enfermagem

O estudo teve como objetivo conhecer as percepções dos alunos de graduação em enfermagem, quanto à sua qualidade de vida. A abordagem adotada foi a qualitativa. Realizou-se cinco entrevistas individuais com questões abertas: para você, o que significa ter qualidade de vida; relate experiências pessoais ou observadas, em seu cotidiano como aluno, sobre aspectos que considera promotores e não promotores da sua qualidade de vida. A análise temática permitiu identificar as principais situações promotoras da qualidade de vida: experiências extracurriculares; relação professor-aluno; relacionamento entre os alunos. Os aspectos não promotores foram: a falta de acolhimento por parte de professores e enfermeiros de campo; a falta de integração com a equipe e com alunos de outros cursos do campus; e a carga horária excessiva para o aluno trabalhador. Evidencia-se o importante papel da educação como estratégia de medidas eficazes na busca da qualidade do cuidado.

Greening Homeowners: A Collaborative Educational Challenge

Greening homeowners is the result of a National Center for Environmental Research, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency initiative titled P3 Award: A National Student Design Competition for Sustainability focusing on People, Prosperity, and the Planet. This article described the research proposal developed for the competition that outlined a model for collaborative, sustainable research-based student projects. While the focus of the student design project is on educating the consumer by developing an environmental information distribution mechanism (IDM), the desired outcome is that consumer demand will drive an increase in green home building and design, not as an upgrade or an add-on, but as an accepted building standard. Greening homeowners can be integrated into both core and elective courses, or it can be an extracurricular experience through student chapter or club activities. As a result of student participation in what is envisioned as a collaborative educational experience, the students will produce an IDM for environmentally preferable products in home building industry practices. The IDM will include material specifications and green building techniques for various levels of sustainability and matrices for examining the cost benefit analysis of traditional versus green building and design materials and techniques. The IDM will provide consumers with the means for encouraging the home building industry to use environmentally preferable products and processes in the design, renovation, and construction of their homes.

Using extracurricular activity as an indicator of interpersonal skill: Prudent evaluation or recruiting malpractice?

AbstractThere is widespread agreement that success in organizations requires more than high intellect. Thus, college recruiters commonly examine job candidates' extracurricular activities in search of “well‐rounded,” emotionally intelligent, and interpersonally skilled students. Intuitively, extracurricular activities seem like valuable student experiences; however, research evidence is sparse, suggesting far more questions than answers. Is participation in extracurricular activity truly linked to interpersonal skill performance? Does leadership experience make a difference? Do extracurricular experiences yield higher skill development? Six hundred eighteen business students and the relationship of their extracurricular involvement to four interpersonal skills were examined. Significant relationships were found and recruitment implications are discussed. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

A Moving Way to Learn About Psychoanalysis

A Moving Way to Learn About Psychoanalysis

Thinking styles, self‐esteem, and extracurricular experiences

This study had two objectives. The first was to examine the relationship between thinking styles and self‐esteem. The second objective was to investigate the relationship of the participants' extracurricular experiences to both thinking styles and self‐esteem. Seven‐hundred and ninety‐four university students from Hong Kong participated in the study. Participants responded to the Thinking Styles Inventory (Sternberg &amp; Wagner, 1992) and the Self‐Esteem Inventory (Adult Form, Coopersmith, 1981) as well as to a questionnaire designed to elicit both personal and situational characteristics. It was found that thinking styles and self‐esteem are statistically related. Meanwhile, both thinking styles and self‐esteem are statistically related to the participants' extracurricular experiences. Implications of these findings for teachers are discussed.

Defining Belief in Self: Intelligent Young Men in an Urban High School

To address the [ILLEGIBLE] of research on high-ability youth in urban environments this article chronicles the experiences of six intelligent young men in an urban high school. Through a qualitative research design that integrated features of case study and ethnographic research, the study examined how urban life experiences influenced academic achievement. The six cases reported in this study are a subset of 12 cases (Hebert, 1993) that contributed to a larger study (Reis, Hebert, Diaz, Maxfield, &amp; Ratley, 1995) of talented students in an urban high school. Major findings for the high-ability achieving males were a strong belief it self that incorporated an “inner will,” aspirations, heightened sensitivity and a multicultural awareness and appreciation. Data analysis on the participants identified the following factors that influenced the strong belief it self relationships with supportive adults; involvement in extracurricular activities, sports, special programs, and summer school experiences, and family support Implications of the findings are presented along with suggestions for meeting the educational needs of intelligent young men in urban high schools.

Gender differences in students' experiences, interests, and attitudes toward science and scientists

The purpose of this study was to examine sixth grade students' attitudes and experiences related to science. The study involved 437 students who completed a survey designed to elicit students' perceptions of science and scientists, out-of-school science experiences, science topics of interest, and characteristics of future jobs. Results showed that for this sample there continue to be significant gender differences in science experiences, attitudes, and perceptions of science courses and careers. Males reported more extracurricular experiences with a variety of tools such as batteries, electric toys, fuses, microscopes, and pulleys. Females reported more experiences with bread-making, knitting, sewing, and planting seeds. More male than female students indicated they were interested in atomic bombs, atoms, cars, computers, x-rays, and technology, whereas more females reported interest in animal communication, rainbows, healthy eating, weather, and AIDS. In addition, when asked about future jobs, male and female students' responses differed by gender. Males saw variables such as controlling other people, becoming famous, earning lots of money, and having a simple and easy job as important. Females, more than males, wanted to “help other people.” Students' perceptions of science showed that significantly more females than males reported that science was difficult to understand, whereas more males reported that science was destructive and dangerous, as well as more “suitable” for boys. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Sci Ed 84:180–192, 2000.

Links between Professional Education and the Penalized Campus Press

Perhaps the most compelling issue in journalism education today crystallizes a traditional tension between the academy and the profession. To move into the 21 st century, some educators now say, journalism and mass communication curricula must shift away from an antiquated green eyeshade mentality, toward a theory-oriented general examination of human communication. The purpose of this study is to examine one sphere of this controversy. College newspapers are an immediate product of journalism education in academic environments; so, we sought evidence of a relationship between the kind of journalism education available to students who produce college newspapers, and the performance of those papers. Observers' opinions vary widely on the merits of differing kinds of journalism and mass communication education. For example, Blanchard and Christ (1993) say traditional journalism education that emphasizes expensive, hands-on training for entry-level positions in specific professions is unwelcome on modern cost-conscious campuses. They contend skill and technology training is better left to extracurricular experience that ... is neither mandatory nor the center of the curriculum. It does not absorb a great deal of faculty time and effort, and only a little of it, if any, is for academic credit; it is mostly co-curricular. Students seek this experience on their own extra-curricular, `rest-and-recreation' time. By so doing, they demonstrate their interests, initiative and motivation-attributes that cannot be taught in required, lock-step courses but that media practitioners profess to prize so highly. (p. 71) On the other hand, Mencher (Reconstructing, 1994) observes that reformers emphasize concept-oriented courses while the current technology-heavy communications environment dazzles students. We have forgotten the necessity to train those who would put the messages on the hurtling electrons, he says. Yet this is the kind of training that some would replace with programs in generic journalism and the like, one of which, a leading exponent of the changeover says, would consist of a journalism program in which no student would be required to write (p. 72). What impact would the proposed reforms in curricula have on the quality of the products journalism students produce? What results when journalism programs move away from a professional model to what some derisively call communicology (Highton, 1967, p. 10)? Aside from the rhetoric generated by the controversy, there is scant evidence regarding the effect such a shift away from the practical in communication education would have on the performance of journalism. Literature review Expressions of concern regarding the role of communication and its various subfields in the academic world have taken a tone of urgency in recent years. Authors from within the academy have noted that although considerable numbers of students enroll in communication programs each year, the field of communication is in a weakened position relative to traditionally accepted fields such as history or philosophy. It is young in academic terms and badly fragmented among speech, interpersonal communication, rhetoric, mass communication, journalism, cultural studies and other areas (Rakow, 1993; Swanson, 1993). In addition, there are suggestions that because of its various roots, communication as an academic field has no unifying theory (Shoemaker, 1993). With neither tradition nor solid academic credentials, communication programs have become a large target of opportunity for administrators in the modern atmosphere of downsizing (Avery, 1993; Kosicki and Becker, 1994). Journalism and mass communication programs have been targeted directly, with threats and outright actions to abolish or subsume journalism units (Beasley, July 1994 and September 1994; Dennis, 1994). Journalism educator and researcher Everette Dennis warns that journalism and mass communication programs are threatened because of university budget cutting, duplication of program content, questions about programs' centrality to university missions, and an absence of visible, effective leaders from journalism and mass communication programs (1994, p. …

Decision making of rural gifted females:Case studies of precollege influences

Factors that influence precollege decision making as they relate to growing up as a rural gifted female were investigated. Findings from questionnaires and interviews focusing on high school and extracurricular experiences with college students in rural south Georgia produced case studies reflecting perceptions of decision‐making influences. Involvement in high school experiences was influenced more by their self‐perceptions and circumstances. The participants saw themselves as intelligent, independent, outspoken, and goal‐directed. These rural gifted young women of the nineties expected to be involved in dual career and partnership relationships. Although uncertain about career decisions, non‐traditional science careers as well as more traditional teaching careers were considered. Family support was important for their development. Creating blocks of time was seen as a crucial resource for effective organization and planning in facilitating goal attainment.

The Literacy Press: A Process Model for Reading Development

This study identified and evaluated educational experiences, from preschool through high school, that were important to the acquisition of adult literacy. Those experiences were measured using a data collection booklet specifically developed for that purpose. A national sample of 2,177 high school seniors was categorized by three levels of student involvement (i.e., high, moderate, or low) in each of nine variables representing home, school, and extracurricular experiences at one or more schooling level(s) (i.e., preschool, elementary, and high school). Mean reading scores were computed for each level of involvement for all nine of the variables. An analysis of variance (ANOVA) identified those variables that yielded a significant difference (p > .05) in the mean reading scores. A posteriori test results indicated that for the overall population sample, as well as for subgroups defined by social class and gender, the level of the students’ involvement in all nine of the variables was related to their reading ability as young adults. Most surprising, a regression analysis of the variables showed that early childhood experiences were an important predictor of adult reading status.

Reflections on Three Decades of Education of the Gifted

This article reviews the development of the philosophy and practice of gifted education. The writer argues for the need of a comprehensive and coherent planning policy which takes into account the total experience of the gifted student. It suggests that the gifted learner needs the basic skills, an understanding of processes and subject matter which constitute a good general curriculum; specialized skills and knowledge that develop particular talents; personal understanding of relationships and values and extra-curricular experiences including personnel and material not available in the normal school. The article also stresses the vital need for differentiation in the curriculum which allows for individual differences in pace, depth and breadth.

Next Month's New Outlook Will be a Special Issue on Career Education Making Mobility Meaningful

The sequential orientation and mobility curriculum in use at the Iowa Braille and Sight Saving School consists of 127 lessons divided into five units of instruction (indoor travel, campus travel, residential travel, basic business travel, and advanced business travel). In addition to the motivational possibilities built into the curriculum, the instructional staff have also experimented with a mobility quiz contest and with awards and cash prizes for achievement and extra-curricular travel experience. The specific skills and tasks involved in each unit are listed in an appendix to the article.

Topics, Forms and Methods of School Regional Study: (According to the findings of a study of extracurricular working experience in the schools of Moscow Region)

Various forms of rational study work are described chiefly in many articles published in our educational literature. In this article an attempt is made in some measure to generalize the author's personal experience and that of certain schools of the Moscow region, and to reveal the content, forms and methods of school regional study.