Individual Student Characteristics Research Articles

Are Changes in Students' Perceptions of the Learning Environment Related to Changes in Emotional and Behavioural Problems?

Previous cross-sectional based research suggests that students' perceptions of the learning environment are associated with emotional and behavioural problems (EBP). However, it is not clear to what extent the associations identified are merely reflections of individual student characteristics. The present study explored this issue by utilizing a pre-test post-test design to minimize the influence of stable individual characteristics on associations of perceived learning environment with EBP. By conducting the study in a Norwegian secondary school implementing relatively substantial changes in the learning environment we explored how changes in students' perceptions of the learning environment were related to changes in reports of EBP. Results suggest that associations between learning environment factors and EBP are not merely reflections of individual characteristics. Changes in EBP were significantly related to changes in most of the learning environment factors.

The Illusion of Equality: The Educational Consequences of Blinding Weak States, for Example

Does the government control of school systems facilitate equality in school quality? There is a trade-off. On the one hand, government direct control of schools, typically through a large scale hierarchical organization, could produce equalization across schools by providing uniformity in inputs, standards, and teacher qualifications that localized individually managed schools could not achieve. But there is a tendency for large scale formal bureaucracies to “see” less and less of localized reality and hence to manage on the basis of a few simple, objective, and easily administratively verified characteristics (e.g. resources per student, formal teacher qualifications). Whether centralized or localized control produces more equality depends therefore not only on what “could” happen in principle but what does happen in practice. When government implementation capacity is weak, centralized control could lead to only the illusion of equality: In which central control of education with weak internal or external accountability actually allows for much greater inequalities across schools than entirely “uncontrolled” local schools. Data from Pakistan, using results from the LEAPS study, and from two states of India show much larger variance in school quality (adjusted for student characteristics) among the government schools — because of very poor public schools which continue in operation. We use the PISA data to estimate school specific learning achievement (in mathematics, science, and reading) net of individual student and school average background characteristics and compare public and private schools for 34 countries. For these countries there is, on average, exactly the same inequality in adjusted learning achievement across the private schools as across the public schools. But while inequality is the same on average, in some countries, such as Denmark, there was much more equality within the public sector while in others, such as Mexico, there was much more inequality among the public schools. Among the 18 non-OECD participating PISA countries the standard deviation across schools in adjusted quality was, on average, 36 percent higher in government than in private schools. In cases with weak states the proximate cause of high inequality again was that the public sector distribution of performance had a long left tail — schools with extremely poor performance. Relying on blinded weak states for top-down control of educational systems can be lose-lose relative to localized systems relying on bottom-up control — producing worse average performance and higher inequality.

Measuring Attributes of Success of College Students in Nursing Programs: A Psychometric Analysis

Because of the most recent nurse shortage it has become important to determine retention factors of nursing students in the context of various aspects of college nursing programs and institutional systems. The purpose of this article is to describe the psychometric properties of a new measure that could be useful in examining nursing student retention related to the educational institution characteristics, educational processes, and individual student characteristics. The measurement instrument was conceptually designed around 4 constructs and was administered to a test group and a validation group. The dispositional construct loaded differently for each group (test group: math and science ability, confidence in the future, and confidence in ability; validation group: math and science ability, confidence in the future, self-expectation, and confidence in ability). The situational construct factored on 4 subscales (financial issues, social support, missed classes, and work issues); the institutional construct on 4 factors (peer, overall experience, diversity, and faculty); the career values construct on 5 factors (job characteristics, autonomy, caring, flexibility, and work style). Based on the results of the factor analyses and alpha reliability, evidence supported using the dispositional subscales of math and science ability, the career values subscales of job characteristics and work style, the situational subscales of work issues and financial issues, and the institutional subscales of diversity and faculty. The other potential subscales need further refinement and testing.

Explaining English Language Proficiency Among Adolescent Immigrant Students

This study aims to increase understanding of factors that account for academic English language proficiency in a sample of 274 adolescent first-generation immigrant students from China, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Central America, and Mexico. Previous research has shown the importance of English language proficiency in predicting academic achievement measured by GPA and achievement tests. The present study describes the academic English language proficiency of immigrant youth after, on average, 7 years in the United States and models factors that contribute to variation. Findings show that although differences in individual student characteristics partially explain variation in English language proficiency, the schools that immigrant youth attended are also important. The amount of time that students spent speaking English in informal social situations is predictive of English language proficiency. These findings demonstrate that social context factors directly affect language learning among adolescent immigrant youth and suggest a crucial role for school and peer interventions.

The Relationship of Some Personality and Individual Characteristics with an Individual's Commitment to an Ideal Vision for Performance Improvement

This study examined the relationships among specified personality and individual characteristics of university students with their level of commitment to a measurable, results-focused statement of an Ideal Vision. The study examined variables (including locus of control, generativity, self-efficacy, values, and risk taking) to determine their relationship with an individual's commitment to an Ideal Vision. Concurrent assessments of individual differences and commitment were utilized to investigate the relationship these variables may have with an individual's commitment to the pragmatic leadership and management practice of using an Ideal Vision as the starting place for strategic planning, needs assessment, performance improvement, and decision making.

The Big-fish–little-pond-effect Stands Up to Critical Scrutiny: Implications for Theory, Methodology, and Future Research

The big-fish–little-pond effect (BFLPE) predicts that equally able students have lower academic self-concepts (ASCs) when attending schools where the average ability levels of classmates is high, and higher ASCs when attending schools where the school-average ability is low. BFLPE findings are remarkably robust, generalizing over a wide variety of different individual student and contextual level characteristics, settings, countries, long-term follow-ups, and research designs. Because of the importance of ASC in predicting future achievement, coursework selection, and educational attainment, the results have important implications for the way in which schools are organized (e.g., tracking, ability grouping, academically selective schools, and gifted education programs). In response to Dai and Rinn (Educ. Psychol. Rev., 2008), we summarize the theoretical model underlying the BFLPE, minimal conditions for testing the BFLPE, support for its robust generalizability, its relation to social comparison theory, and recent research extending previous implications, demonstrating that the BFLPE stands up to scrutiny.

Prediktivna vrijednost nekih testova sposobnosti, upitnika ličnosti i školskog uspjeha u osnovnoj školi za uspjeh u prvom razredu gimnazije

U selekcijskom postupku kakav je upis u srednju školu, individualne karakteristike učenika, poput inteligencije i osobina ličnosti, te uspjeh u ranijem školovanju, mogu pomoći u predviđanju budućeg akademskog uspjeha. Stoga se u ovom istraživanju željelo provjeriti prediktivnu vrijednost testova inteligencije i upitnika ličnosti korištenih u selekcijskom postupku za upis u Zadarsku privatnu gimnaziju, kao i školskog uspjeha u osnovnoj školi za uspjeh u prvom razredu gimnazije. Iako postoji određena povezanost između rezultata na različitim testovima inteligencije i upitnicima ličnosti sa školskim uspjehom i drugim oblicima ponašanja u školi (poput izostajanja s nastave), Test smisla riječi iz B-serije, opći uspjeh u 7. razredu, te ukupan broj izostanaka u 8. razredu osnovne škole imaju značajnu ulogu u objašnjenju školskog uspjeha u prvom razredu gimnazije.

Analiza školskih izostanaka s obzirom na bračni status roditelja

Bježanje s nastave postaje moderan obrazac ponašanja srednjoškolaca. Sve više učenici izostaju iz neopravdanih razloga, a povećava se i broj opravdanih sati izostanaka. Razlozi su višestruki: uključuju individualne osobine učenika, kao što su adolescentne godine, emocionalni problemi, slaba samokontrola, niska razina samopoštovanja, izostanak samopouzdanja , anksioznost i bijeg od obveza i sl., zatim elemente vezane za vršnjake i širi društveni kontekst, kao što su sklonost konzumacijama, vršnjaci skloni markiranju, dokoličarenje, noćni izlasci, neuključenost u izvannastavne aktivnosti, vršnjaci skloni krađi, vandalizmu, tuči itd. U školskoj sredini rizični čimbenici izostanaka mogu biti između ostalih: izostanak nastavnikove potpore, nekohezivnost razreda (negativno školsko ozračje), opširni školski programi (preopterećenost), nepridržavanje Pravilnika o ispitivanju i ocjenjivanju od nastavnika, nastava kao jednosmjeran proces (autonomija nastavnika), pretolerantni i prestrogi nastavnici, škola bez stručnih suradnika, kao i učestalo antisocijalno ponašnje u školi. Brojna dosadašnja istraživanja pokazuju kako su varijable vezane za obitelj važne determinante svih oblika neprihvatljivih ponašanja u školi. Među njima najznačajnije i najistraživanije su: stil odgoja (autoritarni ili previše popustljiv), neskladan brak roditelja, roditelji konzumenti ili ovisnici, ekonomska nesigurnost, izostanak nadzora i kontrole, neangažirani ili nedosljedni roditelji, nerealna očekivanja (visoka ili preniska), jednoroditeljska obitelj, nesuradnja s nastavnicima u školi. Suvremeni fenomen spremnosti roditelja na opravdanje neopravdanih izostanaka stavlja u vezu povećanu toleranciju roditelja prema apsentiranju od školskih obveza. U ovom radu prikazana je analiza opravdanih i neopravdanih izostanaka s obzirom na bračni status roditelja, te njihova spremnost na opravdanje neopravdanih izostanaka.

What is Known about Student Learning Outcomes and How does it relate to the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning?

The purpose of this essay is to provide a broad review of topics relevant to the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL). Sources from the international community have been utilized to provide summaries on the issues of assessment of student learning, accountability concerns, learning expectations, student motivation, and approaches to learning. Multiple theories of learning are discussed in relation to memory, cognition, constructionist viewpoint, self-defined reality, schemas, the mindful engagement of student learners, and the interplay of the learning environment and individual student characteristics. Each micro summary can be a potential building point for those new to SoTL as well as for its veterans.

Texas Students' College Expectations: Does High School Racial Composition Matter?

This article explores the association between school racial composition and students' expectations to graduate from a four-year college. In addition to the individual characteristics of students that have been repeatedly shown to influence educational goals, the results indicate that both school socioeconomic level and achievement composition are related to expectations. The results also suggest the counterintuitive finding that in similar schools, students in schools with greater concentrations of minority students are more likely to expect to attain a four-year college degree than are students in schools with lower proportions of minority students.

What influences dental students to serve special care patients?

This study examines factors associated with graduating dental students' motivation to deliver services to special care patients. We investigated community context and student characteristics, which would influence potential behavior. Higher percentages of older adults and low-income residents in the community were positively correlated with interest in serving special care populations. Factors which correlated with individual student characteristics included having a father with at least a college education, a higher number of weeks spent in extramural clinical rotations, preparedness to provide care to disabled patients, and service orientation and socially conscious attitudes. Frail elderly and disabled persons have limited access to dental care, which is compounded by a shortage of skilled dental professionals who are willing to treat these populations. Our findings suggest that interest in special care dentistry is partly conditioned by the dental school's demographic and dental market context. This study is important to dental educators and policymakers because the challenge of providing care to the "special patient" will increase in the future.

Learning styles' recognition in e‐learning environments with feed‐forward neural networks

AbstractPeople have unique ways of learning, which may greatly affect the learning process and, therefore, its outcome. In order to be effective, e‐learning systems should be capable of adapting the content of courses to the individual characteristics of students. In this regard, some educational systems have proposed the use of questionnaires for determining a student learning style; and then adapting their behaviour according to the students' styles. However, the use of questionnaires is shown to be not only a time‐consuming investment but also an unreliable method for acquiring learning style characterisations. In this paper, we present an approach to recognize automatically the learning styles of individual students according to the actions that he or she has performed in an e‐learning environment. This recognition technique is based upon feed‐forward neural networks.

Video lottery terminal access and gambling among high school students in Montréal.

Gambling is a risky behaviour that involves uncertain financial outcomes, can be addictive, and has been associated with strongly adverse social and public health outcomes. We wanted to assess whether socio-economic and gambling-related-opportunity environments of neighbourhoods affected the uptake of video lottery terminal (VLT) gambling among Montréal youth. Spatial and statistical analyses were conducted to examine geographical patterns of neighbourhood socio-economic conditions, VLT sites (n=407), and high school locations (n=305) within the Montréal Census Metropolitan Area (CMA). VLT concentration within high school neighbourhoods was measured to examine how the number of VLT opportunities varies according to socio-economic status of the school neighbourhood. A student survey was analyzed using logistic regression analysis to explore the role of individual (student) characteristics and environmental (neighbourhood) characteristics in predicting the VLT gambling behaviours reported among a sample (n=1206) of high school students. Video lottery gambling opportunities are more prevalent near schools located in socio-economically deprived neighbourhoods compared with schools located in more affluent neighbourhoods. The principal individual risk factors for VLT gambling were shown to be male sex, peer VLT-use, substance use, as well as the after-school routines of youth. The spatial distribution of VLTs reflects local geographies of socio-economic disadvantage and may have a pronounced impact on students attending schools in lower income neighbourhoods, especially those with individual risk factors. Efforts to reduce gambling-related public health costs may want to take into account the socio-spatial distribution of gambling opportunities, particularly in the local environments that youth frequent.

Modelling university human capital formation and measuring its efficiency: evidence from Florence University

In this paper, an analysis of the technical efficiency in the formation of 2,236 graduates in 1998 in the University of Florence, that is, in the university human capital formation, is performed, by modelling the production process as one in which the student produces himself as a graduate. The tool utilized is the DEA methodology, under the hypothesis of variable returns to scale. The production factors are represented by a set of human and capital resources provided by the faculties, along with individual factors represented by secondary school diploma score and by the length of university study. The analysis is conducted both for the overall graduates, and at a faculty level, in order to emphasize the contribution provided by the latter to efficiency. There is evidence that the students graduated with an average efficiency greater than 90% and therefore with an unexploited productive capacity lower than 10%. At a faculty level, Formation Science appears to be the most efficient, whereas Economics is the less efficient one. By and large, the contribution to efficiency provided by faculties is greater than that brought by students individual characteristics.

Social modeling in the school environment, student characteristics, and smoking susceptibility: A multi-level analysis

Purpose To examine how social models in the school environment and individual student characteristics are related to smoking susceptibility. Methods Using data from the School Smoking Profile Project, multi-level logistic regression analysis was used to identify school and student characteristics related to smoking susceptibility among 6679 never smokers from 29 secondary schools in Ontario, Canada. Results If a nonsmoking student attended a school where there was student smoking on the school periphery, he or she was less likely to be susceptible to smoking (OR 0.71, 95% CI 0.57–0.89). A significant contextual interaction between the smoking on the school periphery and friends’ disapproval of smoking was identified (β = 0.68 [0.23], p < .01]; students with friends who disapprove of smoking were more likely to be susceptible to smoking if they attended a school with student smoking on the school periphery. Conclusion Nonsmoking students who attend a school with student smoking on the school periphery are at an increased risk for being susceptible to smoking if they have friends who disapprove of smoking. Future school-based smoking prevention programs might benefit from targeting both individual students and entire schools with programming activities.

The Frog Pond Revisited: High School Academic Context, Class Rank, and Elite College Admission

In this article, the authors test a “frog-pond” model of elite college admission proposed by Attewell, operationalizing high school academic context as the secondary school-average SAT score and number of Advanced Placement tests per high school senior. Data on more than 45,000 applications to three elite universities show that a high school's academic environment has a negative effect on college admission, controlling for individual students' scholastic ability. A given applicant's chances of being accepted are reduced if he or she comes from a high school with relatively more highly talented students, that is, if the applicant is a small frog in a big pond. Direct evidence on high school class rank produces similar findings. A school's reputation or prestige has a counterbalancing positive effect on college admission. Institutional gatekeepers are susceptible to context effects, but the influence of school variables is small relative to the characteristics of individual students. The authors tie the findings to prior work on meritocracy in college admission and to the role played by elite education in promoting opportunity or reproducing inequality, and they speculate on the applicability of frog-pond models in areas beyond elite college admission.

Rethinking silence in the classroom: Chinese students’ experiences of sharing indigenous knowledge

Recent research has documented silence/reticence among East‐Asian international students, including Chinese students, in Western/English classrooms. Students’ communication competence and cultural differences from the mainstream Euro‐American society have been identified as two primary barriers to participation. Placing emphasis on individual characteristics of Chinese students, however, without considering aspects of the educational context with which those characteristics interact, may over‐simplify and distort the mechanism underlying their silence in the classroom. Based on a qualitative study of Chinese students’ experience of sharing indigenous knowledge in classroom settings of Canadian academic institutions, it is argued that the pursuit of diversity in the classroom may be compromised by classroom interactions, through which, for instance, the dynamics and quality of the knowledge exchange of students from different socio‐cultural backgrounds may be adversely affected. Within this conceptual framework, the concepts ‘silence’, ‘culture difference’ and ‘indigenous knowledge’ are re‐examined; the concepts ‘reciprocal cultural familiarity’ and ‘inclusive knowledge sharing’ are advocated. … [W]hen I did participate, mostly because I was required to. … Students took turns to present something and that is your topic. You have to say something but even then I didn’t feel that good because it seems … they didn’t feel that interested, … like they couldn’t follow my ideas, follow my perspective. And so it seems difficult to communicate. I think that is not just because of the language, it seems we see the same thing in different ways. (Chinese student in this study)

Educational Program Characteristics and Pass Rates on the National Physical Therapy Examination

Background and Purpose. There has been a recent move to identify benchmarking criteria for indicators of quality in an educational program. One measure of program quality is performance on the National Physical Therapy Examination (NPTE). The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of educational program characteristics on NPTE pass rates. Subjects and Methods. Program directors from 132 Commission on Accreditation in Physical Therapy Education (CAPTE) accredited physical therapist education programs completed a survey about their program. This information was matched with the NPTE pass rate for that program. A regression analysis was performed examining 21 independent variables and their role in predicting the program's pass rate. Results. The final regression model consisted of three educational program variables that best predicted the pass rate on the NPTE examination: 1) accreditation status, 2) number of faculty with a PhD and/or EdD, and 3) years of preprofessional and professional coursework combined. Discussion and Conclusion. Although we found that the total length of the program (ie, preprofessional and professional combined) was a significant variable in the regression model, the length of the professional program by itself was not. The program pass rate is dependent on a number of factors including individual student characteristics as well as the quality of the professional educational program and its faculty.

Measuring cognitive and dispositional characteristics of creativity in elementary students

: This article describes the theoretical underpinning and development of a measurement instrument that provides teachers with a tool to observe the personal creativity characteristics of individual students. The instrument was developed by compiling a list of characteristics derived from the literature to be indicative of the personal characteristics of creative people. The list was then reduced by grouping like characteristics to 9 cognitive and dispositional traits that were considered appropriate for elementary students. The 9‐item instrument was then administered in 24 classrooms to 520 Year 6 and Year 7 students. Factor analysis using maximum likelihood extraction with an oblimin rotation revealed a single factor with an eigenvalue greater than 1 and accounting for 63% of the variance. All 9 items on this factor loaded at .72 or greater. The results indicated that the Creativity Checklist has very high internal consistency and is a reliable measurement instrument (a = .93).

Senior student smoking at school, student characteristics, and smoking onset among junior students: a multilevel analysis

Background Current research on the etiology of tobacco use has largely focused on identifying the influential psychosocial characteristics of individual students; the influences of characteristics in the school environment are generally ignored. The purpose of this study was to simultaneously examine how school and individual student characteristics were related to smoking onset. Method Multilevel logistic regression analysis was used to examine how the senior student smoking rate at a school and the psychosocial characteristics of students were able to differentiate tried-once smokers from experimental smokers in a sample of 4850 grade 9, 10, and 11 students from the School Smoking Profile (SSP) project. Results Each 1% increase in smoking rate among high school seniors increased the odds that a junior student was an experimental smoker vs. a tried-once smoker (OR 1.07, 95% CI 1.03–1.12). A significant contextual interaction was identified where the senior student smoking rate at a school moderates the negative influence of having close friends who smoke. Influential student characteristics were also identified. Conclusions The smoking prevalence of older students at a school is directly related to smoking onset among younger students at that school. Prevention programs should target schools that put students at-risk.