High Percentage Of Students Research Articles

Involvement of nursing students in unethical classroom and clinical behaviors.

A study was conducted to determine the incidence of unethical classroom and clinical behaviors among nursing students, to find out their opinions about the unethical nature of these behaviors, and to investigate the relationships among demographic data, unethical classroom behaviors, unethical clinical behaviors, and opinions about the behaviors. A questionnaire listing 11 unethical classroom and 11 unethical clinical behaviors was completed by 101 senior nursing students. Findings indicated a lower incidence of unethical classroom behaviors and a higher percentage of students who thought these behaviors unethical than had been reported in comparable previous studies. Total unethical classroom behaviors were significantly higher for female than for male students. The opinion that a behavior was unethical was significantly related to the incidence of six items on the scale. Total unethical classroom behaviors were significantly positively related to total unethical clinical behaviors (p < 0.001). Recommendations are made to faculty members for dealing with each of the factors that appear to contribute to unethical behaviors. It is suggested that future studies investigate a multifactoral model of unethical behavior and include nonnursing students and nursing students from other settings.

Follow–Up Study of Visually Impaired Students of the Michigan School for the Blind

A study of currently and previously enrolled students at the Michigan School for the Blind was performed in order to assess how well the students’ needs were being met and to investigate the perceptions of parents, local school personnel, and state school personnel concerning programs for students. There was general agreement that past and present placements were appropriate. It was also shown that a higher percentage of students at the state school had access to specialized instruction and aids. Other advantages of the residential situation were specialized curriculum and extracurricular activities, training in living and leisure skills, small classes, and individualized attention.

In Defense of "Private Schools and Public Policy": Reply to Kilgore

Kilgore's critique of our paper (Alexander and Pallas, 1983) raises several questions regarding our conclusion that public schools-do about as well as Catholic schools in promoting cognitive achievement. We agree with Kilgore on only one point: the results we present are not all that dissimilar to those reported by her and her colleagues. What is striking is that we read their implications so differently. Kilgore takes issue with our conclusion that sector differences on test outcomes are small to trivial even before controlling for track enrollment. She is quite right, of course, that the statistics we present are constrained by the variance in the sector measure. We acknowledged our uneasiness with this in a footnote, but nothing in Kilgore's argument moves us from our original position. Consider Kilgore's hypothetical example. She says that the sector variable would account for about 5 percent of the variance in test performance (rather than from .003 to .013 which we report) if there were a sevenfold proportionate increase in the Catholic school enrollment.But who would ever anticipate such a radical transformation of our educational system? And even if -such a remote possibility were granted, is there any reason to expect that achievement processes under that organization would be at all similar to those observed in our data? We concede that our estimations would not apply in Kilgore's example, but that world doesn't exist and probably never will. Our results do characterize the situation that exists at present, though, which we think is far more relevant. Kilgore is not much impressed by our statistics, but she fails to tell us by what standard she judges present-day sector differences to be large. We know of none. Kilgore also criticizes us for not giving her and her colleagues credit for their many attempts to deal with the issue of selection bias. But our critique of their research was quite focused: they failed to deal adequately with the input-level differences in test performance which likely remain after socioeconomic and demographic controls. We do not think any of their procedures are satisfactory on this score, although the analysis they report which controls on curriculum membership (like ours) probably comes closest. Kilgore fails to comment directly on this aspect of our critique. As we said in our paper, she and her colleagues consistently have failed to acknowledge their lack of a suitable input control (or proxy) for competency differences between students in the two sectors. This remains true even through the present exchange and despite the fact that Kilgore's own model in her comment includes predetermined competency levels as an independent predictor of both sector and achievement. We resorted to curriculum controls as an admittedly less than ideal proxy for the elusive datum on input-level test differences. We argued that doing so was preferable to neglecting the issue altogether. Kilgore contends, however, that our procedure fails to credit the Catholic sector with whatever benefits derive from channeling a higher percentage of students into the academic track than is observed in the public sector. This is true and we made note of it in our paper. We argued, though, that there is stronger justification for treating track location as a student choice factor rather than an administrative one if forced to choose between the two. Kilgore offers no reason to think us mistaken. As was stated in our paper, we again grant that school policy differences are relevant to the curriculum placement issue, but we are not much impressed with Kilgore's attempt to take account of this empirically. From a schoollevel analysis, she computes the independentinfluence of sector on curriculum placement and then uses that figure to adjust our results on within-sector achievement differences. Her objective is to derive a measure of sector influence which subsumes both the direct effect of sector on achievement and any indirect effects This research was funded by Grant No. NIE-G80-0113 from the National Institute of Education to the Johns Hopkins University Center for the Social Organization of Schools. The conclusions and opinions expressed are solely the authors' and are not necessarily those of theNIE. Address all correspondence to the authors at the Department of Sociology, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218.

The Influence of Student, Course, and Instructor Characteristics in Evaluations of University Teaching

This study examined the relationship between student evaluations and a set of 16 background characteristics (e.g., class size, expected grade, reason for taking course, etc). Class average responses in 511 undergraduate courses taught by a total of 221 different instructors were analyzed. Each separate background variable generally explained less than 5 percent of the variance in any one student evaluation score, and there was little nonlinearity in any of these bivariate relationships. Several different multivariate analyses each suggested that 12 to 14 percent of the variance in the student ratings could be explained by the entire set of 16 background variables. Four background variables were most influential: more favorable ratings were correlated with higher Prior Subject Interest, higher Expected Grades, higher levels of Workload/Difficulty, and a higher percentage of students taking the course for General Interest Only. A path analysis demonstrated that students’ Prior Subject Interest had the strongest impact on student ratings, and that this variable also accounted for about one-third of the relationship between Expected Grades and student ratings.

Caste attitudes of college students in India

AbstractData from college students in North and South India tend to support our earlier findings of a positive relationship between the educational level and the degree of liberalism (Anant, 1972). With few exceptions a higher percentage of students than respondents from the general population gave liberal responses to most of the items in our questionnaire. A higher percentage of North and South Indian students gave liberal responses to items dealing with general attitudes toward caste‐system and toward interaction with Harijans (former ‘untouchables’), but the differences were reversed in the responses to items dealing with special privileges for the depressed castes.

Student Placement Utilizing Incomplete Data Records

A method is proposed for the construction of a classification rule based on both complete and incomplete data records. This method incorporates the Hocking-Smith estimation procedure to find estimates of the mean vectors and variance-covariance matrices from samples which may contain incomplete data vectors. The resulting estimates are used to construct a discriminant function. We will demonstrate that these incomplete observation vectors contain information relevant to classification and should not be discarded. The proposed method is applied to the placement of students into one of two college algebra courses at Tarleton State University. The standard procedure that ignores incomplete observation vectors in the construction of a classification rule is also applied to the same data, and comparisons are made between the two methods. The proposed method that utilizes the incomplete observation vectors correctly classifies a higher percentage of students than does the standard method.

A Modified Form of PSI Employed in an Introductory Electrical Engineering Course

An experimental teaching strategy was employed in a three-quarter introductory Electrical Engineering course. The system was designed to combine the best features of PSI (Proctoral System of Instruction, also known as the Keller Method) and the conventional system, in the context of engineering education. The most important feature is that it allows students to master every assigned problem and rewards them for that mastery. It was found that a very high percentage of students will take advantage of this opportunity. The percentage of students successfully completing the course was high-73%. The experiment was an exploratory one; no control group was employed. Therefore, the net pedagogical impact is not known. But it is known that the system is highly liked by students and is very good for morale.

Preparing for the future: A study of secondment among tutor and administrative students in Scotland—Part II

Preparing for the future: A study of secondment among tutor and administrative students in Scotland—Part II

Preparing for the future: A study of secondment among tutor and administrative students in Scotland—Part I

Preparing for the future: A study of secondment among tutor and administrative students in Scotland—Part I

Equalizing Opportunity Under Higher Charges

PREVIOUS writers have concluded that the educational charges of institutions of higher learning should be increased. I am in sympathy with this idea. My reasons are similar to theirs, but my belief that public as well as private means should be used to meet these increased charges may not be in complete accord with their reasoning. Higher education benefits the individual as well as society in general. Both must share the burden. The effect of increased educational charges on the student (and his family) is going to depend a great deal on who must pay the bill. If it is the student alone, then the effect will be most devastating upon both the individual and the economy. If it is a sharing proposition, which I feel it should and must be, the greatest benefits will accrue with the least deleterious effect on either party. I shall discuss the effect of higher charges on students, but I cannot, with a clear conscience, do so until I point out that increased charges affect as well as students. The potential student does not go to college because of high charges or other factors. The actual student does go and is affected, though differently, by them. High charges can deter students completely from college attendance, or can cause a shift in student populations, unless the colleges and the country as a whole respond adequately to help people meet these increased charges. The loss of potential students because of high charges is a major problem, but beyond the scope of this paper. Suffice it to say that actual students could become potential students unless they are handled with care. There are two groups of college students between which we must first distinguish, in order to gain understanding of the student's problem. The first consists of those who do not now pay all the stated charges for their education. These are the financial-aid holders, representing about 30 per cent of the enrollments of our independent colleges. Few, if any, of the families of these students have incomes in excess of $io,ooo per year. The other group is made up of those who are paying their own way under existing charges. Among the paying customers (70 per cent of the students), a further distinction is necessary. Some of these students come from families where the economic status is no better than that of financial-aid holders. In some instances, it may be worse. Because of high motivation, small family size, extra effort by the student, and pride, and at considerable family sacrifice, these students are going through college without even partial institutional financial support. I estimate that this group constitutes at least 20 per cent of the enrollment of our more expensive institutions. The balance of the paying-customer group, roughly 50 per cent of the total student body, has sufficient family financial strength to meet current charges without institutional help and with only a modest effect on the family's standard of living. Though these three groups are present in all types of institution, the percentages of enrollment which they represent vary considerably between independent institutions and are of marked difference between institutions of public and private support. For example, private women's colleges, in contrast with their male counterparts, will have a greater percentage of paying customers and, of this group, only a very small number will be from the lower income group. In the public institutions we find, first, a much higher percentage of students actually paying the charges without partial institutional support, and, second, a greater relative financial ability to do so without the excessive financial sacrifice that characterizes part of the paying-customer group in the independent colleges. My guess is that about 70 per cent of the students in public institutions, in contrast to 50 per cent in the private ones, can meet existing charges without great sacrifice. Probably fewer than io per cent in these institutions, in contrast to the 20 per cent in private ones, are making what might be termed excessive financial sacrifice under existing pricing. One further comment: though the public institutions con-

THE STUDENT NURSE AND TUBERCULOSIS

Tuberculosis among nurses has long been a serious problem, although it has not been generally recognized in this country. As the morbidity and mortality from tuberculosis in the general population have decreased, the incidence of disease among nurses has become more conspicuous and the magnitude of the problem more obvious. The problem is of universal interest among physicians, since some of them send their daughters to schools of nursing, many of them teach in such schools, and nearly all of them recommend nurses to their private patients. A small group of physicians from various parts of the world has brought to light the fact that in some hospitals outrageously high percentages of students of nursing became contaminated with tubercle bacilli. It is almost unbelievable that, with so much available knowledge of technics which are effective in preventing the spread of disease, a hundred per cent of the girls who entered