Similar Number Of Students Research Articles

Associations of School Diversity with Students' Race-based Victimization and School Connectedness: A Combined Influence of Student and Teacher Racial/Ethnic Diversity and Socioeconomic Diversity.

School diversity has been shown to be associated with students' school experiences. However, most studies have focused solely on student racial/ethnic diversity, in spite of the multifaceted nature of diversity. This study assessed how the combined influence of student and teacher racial/ethnic diversity and socioeconomic diversity were related to race-based victimization, school connectedness, and racial/ethnic disparities of these outcomes. The participants were Asian, Black, Latinx, and White students (n = 100,408; 46.2-53.5% female) in Grade 7 to Grade 12 attending 278 public schools in California. The participating schools' diversity contexts were categorized into four latent profiles differentiated by varying levels of student and teacher racial/ethnic diversity and socioeconomic diversity. Race-based victimization was the least prevalent in schools with low student racial/ethnic diversity, low socioeconomic diversity, and moderate teacher racial/ethnic diversity. The magnitude of racial/ethnic disparities in race-based victimization differed across the four latent profiles; racial/ethnic disparities were minimal when there were similar numbers of students in each racial/ethnic group. School diversity's relation with school connectedness was minimal. White students perceived higher school connectedness than other racial/ethnic groups across profiles, but the White-Latinx gap was smaller in profiles with schools having a homogeneous Latinx student population. The findings underline the importance of understanding school diversity's interaction with students' characteristics, particularly racial/ethnic identity, on students' school experiences.

Perceived influence of COVID-19 pandemic on university students' learning and mental health in Ethiopia

This study reports perceived influence of COVID-19 on students' learning and mental well-being. The data of 367 students were analysed using R. The linear regression model was fitted. A regression coefficient with 95% confidence interval (CI) was computed to identify factors associated with the perceived influence of COVID-19 on students' education and mental health. The mean ± standard deviation scores of perceived influence of COVID-19 on students' learning and communication for learning were 31.7 ± 6.7 and 21.6 ± 3.6, respectively. A similar number of students, 109 (29.7%) reported having depression and anxiety. Being a female student had a negative association with the effects of COVID-19 on learning, while being a rural resident had a strong positive association with both the effects of COVID-19 on learning and communication for learning. Similarly, being a social science student and in 2nd year of study were positively associated with higher history of depression and anxiety. Residing in zonal towns, district towns, and rural settings were found to have a lower prevalence of depression and anxiety. The COVID-19 placed a serious effect on students' education and mental well-being. Thus, the Ethiopian health and higher education sectors need to provide students with basic educational resources and counselling services.

Mental Health among Higher Education Students during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Cross-Sectional Survey from Lithuania.

Mental health issues—anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation and behavior—are prevalent among students of higher education. The COVID-19 pandemic further affected students’ daily life through academic and socioeconomic disturbances. We set out to investigate students’ mental health amidst the COVID-19 pandemic and conducted a cross-sectional online survey at higher education institutions in Lithuania in 2021. The questionnaire consisted of the Hospital Anxiety and Depression scale (HADS) and the Sense of Coherence scale (SOC-3) questionnaires, evaluation of suicidal risk, experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic and self-rated health status (SRHS). Among 1001 students who completed the survey, the prevalence of clinically relevant anxiety was high (46.6%) and contrasted with the lower prevalence of depression (11.1%). 37.5% of all students admitted that they had thought about suicide at least once during their lifetime and a similar number of students thought about suicide during the previous year. High levels of anxiety and depression were statistically significant predictors of suicidal ideation and planning during the past year in binary regression models. High SRHS (higher score refers to more positive health status) was the only significant independent variable associated with less frequent suicidal attempts in the past year (p < 0.01, OR = 0.29, 95% CI = 0.12 to 0.66). Our study highlights anxiety and suicidality to be burdensome mental health issues among higher education students in Lithuania during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Continuity and change of achievement goals in advanced learning context

In this paper, we used a multi-method approach to investigate continuity and change in achievement goals of students who participated in summer classes designed for academically advanced students. Students in classes where their performances were graded showed larger increase in performance-avoidance goals compared to students in classes without grades. The mean-level change in mastery goal was not significant for the overall sample. Further analysis at the individual level suggested that, in fact, the majority of students (77%) experienced changes in mastery goals, with similar number of students having an increase (37.4%) and a decrease (39.4%) over time. Results established several individual and contextual factors as variables that influenced students' goal configurations. Students with fixed mindset displayed the greatest amount of change in their goal profiles. Students who were high in effort beliefs and those who thought that their ideas were valued in classes experienced stability in goal configurations.

The Role of Teacher Leadership in Professional Learning Community (PLC) in International Baccalaureate (IB) Schools: A Social Network Approach

This study aims to illuminate how professional interactions among teachers form different types of teacher leadership in schools, which, in turn, shape different levels of teachers’ involvement in activities related to their professional learning community (PLC). To investigate certain patterns of teachers’ interactions that contribute to the formation of teacher leadership and thereby the development of PLC, two international schools that offer a full continuum of three International Baccalaureate (IB) programs were purposively chosen. The schools have similar numbers of students and are located in two different countries in East Asia. Using a mixed-methods research approach, the patterns of teacher professional interactions were first examined using social network analysis. Next, the degree to which teachers in the case study schools enact practices related to PLCs was assessed and compared through a multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) test. Further, based on findings from social network analysis, in-depth semistructured interviews were conducted with selected key participants to understand the linkage between teacher leadership and teachers’ involvement in their PLC in each case school. From the findings, we propose four conceptual types of teacher leadership that explain how teacher leadership shapes different levels of teachers’ engagement in PLC in the two case schools.

Creating a community of inquiry in the science classroom: an effective pedagogy for teaching diverse students?

ABSTRACTPrior knowledge of and interest in subject matter are recognised as important factors influencing students’ academic achievement and the quality of their learning experience. Teaching students who are diverse in terms of their prior knowledge of and interest in the subject matter is an oft-cited challenge in science general education courses. The present study examined the effectiveness of creating an interactive and collaborative learning community in a science course composed of such students. The lessons design of the course was based on the community of inquiry framework. Survey data from 769 students suggested that students from all faculties made significant, self-perceived, gains in generic skills, the affective domain and the cognitive domain. Also, a similar number of students showed perceived improvement on the outcomes among different faculties. On the other hand, the course grade point analysis showed that there is no significant difference among students from different faculties, which indicated that they have comparable attainment in terms of intended learning outcomes (ILOs) from the teachers’ perspective. The research findings revealed that the suggested pedagogy could be an effective option for science general education courses that enrol students with diverse levels of prior knowledge and interest.

Student perceptions of the education environment in a Spanish medical podiatry school

BackgroundThe aim of this study was to explore students’ perceptions of the educational environment (EE) in a Spanish school of podiatry. Various aspects of EE were compared by academic year in the program.MethodsThis was a cross-sectional study using a questionnaire to collect perceptions using data from a 2015 survey. Podiatric medical students from Extremadura University participated in this study. EE was assessed with the Dundee Ready Education Environment Measure (DREEM) tool.The DREEM questionnaire covers five domains of student perceptions, including learning, teachers, academic self-perceptions, atmosphere, and social self-perceptions.ResultsTwo hundred thirty-five students participated, resulting in a 90.73% response rate. Participants included similar numbers of students from different years in the program, and most were women. The global EE score was 2.58 out of 4, indicating that students’ perceptions were more positive than negative. Although some weaknesses were detected in this school, students viewed the EE positively in all five DREEM domains. Academic year in the program were generally not related to perceptions of EE.ConclusionsPodiatric medical students declared, in general, that the EE was more positive than negative in our school, according to the DREEM questionnaire. However, although the results are on the whole good, some areas need to be revised to make improvements.

‘I Know People Who Were Depressed, and Now They Are Not.’ Students’ Strategies in Classroom Argumentative Interactions with Teachers and Classmates.

This study sets out to investigate the students’ strategies in classroom argumentative discussions with their teacher and with their classmates. The data corpus is constituted by 16 video-recorded lessons of two courses – one at the undergraduate level and one at the graduate level – in Developmental Psychology. The two courses were selected according to the following criteria: similar numbers of students, similar disciplinary domain, both courses are taught by the same teacher in the English language. The results indicate that the undergraduate students advance fewer arguments than the graduate students, and when they do so, in most cases, their arguments are based on practical knowledge and previous personal experience. On the other hand, the graduate students more frequently advance arguments that refer to scientific notions and theories strictly or somehow related to the discipline taught in the course.

An Investigation of Factors that Influence the Hypothesis Generation Ability of Students in School-Based Agricultural Education Programs when Troubleshooting Small Gasline Engines

The purpose of this study was to determine if selected factors influenced the ability of students in school-based agricultural education programs to generate a correct hypothesis when troubleshooting small gasoline engines. Variables of interest included students’ cognitive style, age, GP A, and content knowledge in small gasoline engines. Kirton’ s Adaption-Innovation Inventory was employed to assess cognitive style and a researcher developed criterion-referenced test was utilized to determine small gasoline content knowledge. Students were assigned randomly, by cognitive style, to generate a hypothesis for either a simple or complex small gasoline engine problem. A similar number of students were able to correctly hypothesize the fault in their assigned engine regardless of cognitive style. However, differences were noted between the more adaptive and more innovative students. A binary logistic regression revealed that as cognitive style score increased, the odds of generating a correct hypothesis decreased. Additionally, older students were more likely to generate an incorrect hypothesis. Teachers should encourage students to hypothesize when engaged in problem solving activities, but should be aware of individual differences such as cognitive style.

An Experiment Using Task-Based Approach in English Listening Teaching in A Junior High School

Aiming to explore if the application of Task-based Approach (TBA) to the junior high school English listening teaching in EFLT will be effective in improving the learners' English listening proficiency, increasing their interest and confidence in English listening learning and helping them form the good habit of listening and grasp certain listening methods, the author carried out an experiment in two grade-one classes with similar number of students and similar English level within 32 weeks. The program carried out between the experiment class and the control class. It consisted of pre-test, post-test and questionnaires. The findings of the experiment showed that TBA helps to motivate students and stimulate their interest, confidence, and learning motivation. The students formed better habit of listening and grasped correct listening methods.

A Comparative Study of the Efficiency and the Effectiveness of Primary Education Management between the Provincial Administrative Organisation and the Office of the Basic Education Commission: A Service User Satisfaction Survey

This research aims to (i) examine the effectiveness and the efficiency of primary education management with regards to the service user satisfaction within 29 primary schools in Thailand, subject under provincial administrative organization (PAO), and their counterparts, which are under the authority of the Office of the Basic Education Commission (OBEC), (ii) to conduct a comparative study concerning the effectiveness and the efficiency generated from the selected schools by specifically handpicking, from each province, one school from the PAO and two from the OBEC, amounting to the total number of 3 schools representing each province. The selected samples can be categorized into those containing similar numbers of students and the ones with certain amounts of operating unit cost (OUC), which are essentially contributing to the sum of 87 schools. The data collection was carried out by drawing samples from the students, the parents, and the members of the concerned communities. Each group comprised 812 subjects, leading to the total number of 2,436 study subjects. The gathered data is analysed using average mean and t-test. The findings indicate that the level of user satisfaction, in general, towards the primary education management of the PAO schools, which is marked as x= 4.34, is lower than those listed under the supervision of the OBEC. Such result is consistent for either cases where the sample schools contain similar students numbers ( x= 4.41) or the case where the amount of OUC is relatively equal ( x= 4.41). Upon considering and assessing each group, it was found that while the user satisfaction level, as produced from the students and the community members, did not have significant differences, on the other hand, the level of satisfaction that was generated by the parents reveals that the parents’ perception towards primary education management under the PAO authority ( x= 4.36) was placed lower than those of OBEC, which was also applicable to both cases where similar number of students were present ( x= 4.49) and where the OUC was somewhat equivalent ( x= 4.48).

Favoring argumentative disciplinary discussions in the classroom. A study of teacher's questions at undergraduate and graduate levels

Abstract This study sets out to examine the teacher's questions to their students during argumentative disciplinary discussions in the classroom, i.e., task-related argumentative discussions concerning the discipline taught in the course, with the aim to compare the types of questions used at undergraduate and graduate levels. The data corpus is constituted by 16 video-recorded lessons (about 24 h of video) of two courses – one at the undergraduate level and one at the graduate level – in Developmental Psychology. The two courses were selected according to the following criteria: i) similar number of students, ii) similar disciplinary domain, and iii) both courses are taught by the same teacher in English language. The findings of this study show that at the undergraduate level, the teacher asks broad questions to her students with the aim to favor a large discussion with and among students around general topics relating to Developmental Psychology. At the graduate level the teacher asks specific questions that refer to scientific theories or to certain aspects of a theory in the field of Developmental Psychology. Moreover, at the graduate level both types of teacher's questions are often followed by a further why-questions asked to the students.

Promoting learning and development of students through argumentative interactions: A study of the teacher's questions in the learning contexts of higher education

This study sets out to investigate how learning and development of students through social interaction in the classroom can be pursued by the teacher in the learning contexts of higher education. The aim of this study is to compare the types of teachers' questions to their students used at undergraduate and graduate levels during argumentative disciplinary discussions in the classroom. The data corpus is constituted by 16 video- recorded lessons of two courses - one at undergraduate level and one at graduate level - in Developmental Psychology. The two courses were selected according to the following criteria: i) similar number of students, ii) similar disciplinary domain, iii) both courses are taught by the same teacher in English language. The analytical approach adopted for the analysis relies on a qualitative methodology based on the pragma-dialectical ideal model of a critical discussion. The findings of this study indicate that at the undergraduate level the teacher asks questions that can favour a large discussion with and among students around general topics relating to Developmental Psychology. At the graduate level the teacher asks questions that refer to specific aspects of a certain theory. However, both at undergraduate and graduate level the students are expected to provide the reasons at the basis of their own opinions by advancing arguments that have to refer to scientific theories. The results of this study bring to light the crucial role played by the teacher in promoting learning and development of students, by favouring the beginning of argumentative discussions with and among them on topics relating to the discipline taught in the course.

Introduction to Special Issue on the Property Tax and the Financing of K–12 Education

reschovsky@lafollette.wisc.edu The property tax is the mainstay of local K–12 education revenue. Public schools derive over 80 percent of their local own-source revenue from the property tax (Reschovsky 2014). At the same time, nearly half of total property tax dollars collected in the United States is used to finance public elementary and secondary education (U.S. Census Bureau 2013, 2014). This close link between property taxation and school finance is one motivation for this special issue. Another motivation is the state and local fiscal aftermath of the Great Recession. Over the past few years the financing of public elementary and secondary education has become particularly challenging. In real per pupil terms, total revenues devoted to public education fell by 6.2 percent between the 2008–09 and 2011–12 school years.2 Although comprehensive revenue data are not yet available for the most recent years, existing evidence points to a continued decline in financial support for public education. Data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Quarterly Summary of State and Local Tax Revenue indicate that per capita real local government property tax revenues (for school and non-school purposes) declined by 3 percent between fiscal years 2011 and 2013 (Collins and Langley 2014). And a survey conducted by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found that in 33 states, real

EPA-0940 - The knowledge, attitude and behaviour towards eating amongst adolescents in cheadle, United Kingdom and Karachi, Pakistan

Back Ground Childhood obesity has reached epidemic proportions: Some 4.7 million youths between 6 and 17 years of age are overweight or obese. The number of over-weight youths (11%) has more than doubled over the past 30 years. Obesity has links with disease such as diabetes, heart disease, sleep disorders and some forms of cancers. Developing and maintaining a healthy lifestyle are essential for the prevention of obesity. Methods In a cross sectional study we aimed to investigate and compare the attitudes towards healthy eating and obesity in adolescent students in Pakistan and the UK. The sample size for this study consisted of 618 students in total. A self administered anonymised questionnaire was given to the students and they were to answer questions regarding eating and exercise. Results A Total of 151 students were recruited from the UK, while 467 students were recruited from schools in Pakistan. 5.4% of the students in the UK and 2.6% students in Pakistan were obese. The reasons for students' different eating habits varied between both countries; in the UK an increase in eating was linked to stress while in Pakistan it was linked to cravings. In both the UK and in Pakistan, a high percentage of students took part in physical activity, 80% and 81.8% respectively. There were some similarities in eating habits, with similar numbers of students refraining from eating unhealthy foods in both the countries. Conclusion We found significant differences in BMI and reasons for overeating when comparing students in Pakistan and the UK. These findings have implications for designing interventions

Reasons for choosing dentistry as a career by Arab dental students

The aim of this study was to determine the reasons for choosing dentistry as a career in an Arab population of undergraduate dental students in Jordan. An anonymous questionnaire was administered to dental students from year 1 to 5 at the Faculty of Dentistry of the University of Jordan in Amman. The questionnaire comprised 31 items and the students were required to rate the importance of each item for selecting dentistry as a career on a 10 point scale. Parametric tests were used to investigate if statistically significant differences existed between scores for different groups. The response rate for the study was 79% (477 out of 604 students recruited). Two hundred and twenty one students (46%) had dentistry as a first choice. Prestige was given a maximum score by 44.4% of the students recruited and a similar number of students, 43.6% gave a maximum score to the factor representing helping people. There were slight differences in the motivation between male and females with males more motivated by financial factors. It was concluded that 'prestige' and 'helping people' were important motivating factors in this group of dental students.

Student learning styles in advanced instrumental music lessons

Despite a large body of research into learning styles from cognitive, personality and activity perspectives, the definition of learning style is still unclear. The assessment instruments commonly in use have methodological problems. The learning styles of conservatorium instrumentalists are scarcely known and are best studied using an observational approach. This study investigates student behaviour in 24 studio music lessons in order to provide music educators with new means of describing and classifying learning styles in this unique setting. Six learning styles were identified using cluster analysis, with the largest group of students using the Compliant style of learning that exhibits submissive student behaviour associated with maestro-style teaching. Similar numbers of students employed positive learning strategies (Extrovert and Serious) and negative learning approaches (Apologetic, Disappointed and Frustrated). Stereotypical gender attitudes to learning emerged. The results provide new insights into the learning styles of advanced instrumentalists and inform professional practice by drawing complex models of music learning occurring at conservatorium level.

Is probability matching smart? Associations between probabilistic choices and cognitive ability

In three experiments involving over 1,500 university students (n = 1,557) and two different probabilistic choice tasks, we found that the utility-maximizing strategy of choosing the most probable alternative was not the majority response. In a story problem version of a probabilistic choice task in which participants chose from among five different strategies,the maximizing response and the probability-matching response were each selected by a similar number of students (roughly 35% of the sample selected each). In a more continuous, or trial-by-trial, task, the utility-maximizing response was chosen by only one half as many students asthe probability-matching response. More important, in both versions of the task, the participants preferring the utility-maximizing response were significantly higher in cognitive ability than were the participants showing a probability-matching tendency. Critiques of the traditional interpretation of probability matching as nonoptimal may well help explain why some humans are drawn to the nonmaximizing behavior of probability matching, but the traditional heuristics and biases interpretation can most easily accommodate the finding that participants high in computational ability are more likely to carry out the rule-based cognitive procedures that lead to maximizing behavior.

Raw Data and News

MOST READERS of this column, I suspect, don't have time to read a lot of IT (information technology) insider newsletters, reports, and so on. Since I spend a day or two a week reading this kind of material, I thought I would share with you some of the more interesting and sometimes disturbing things I've read recently. Despite the downturn in the economy in the last quarter of 2001, the Internet did not seem to be affected: it just kept on growing exponentially. Here are some recent figures from NetworkWorld. The number of host computers connected to the Internet rose to 137 million last year, up 40% over the 97 million reported in December 2000. It is interesting to note that about half of the three billion documents indexed by Google are corporate pages, and that proportion is expected to grow. Thus when students surf the Web, half of what they see is generated by a corporation, not by an educational organization. Maybe we need to add required courses such as Media Literacy and Knowledge Work to the curriculum. At the very least we need to help our students understand that they need to consider the source. Traffic on the U.S. portion of the Internet backbone rose to over 55 pentabytes (a pentabyte is a million gigabytes) per month, more than double the 23 pentabytes recorded in January 2001. (Supposedly one pentabyte equals 20 million four-drawer file cabinets filled with text. I wonder who figured this out?) In addition, the number of U.S. adults connected to the Internet rose 5% last year, with 62% now connecting to the Internet at least three times in the past three months. I find this last figure hard to believe, and I am still trying to digest it. I suspect it means that the Internet is becoming a mass medium, like television or radio. The rapid growth in the number of connected servers, in the amount of content available, and in the number of users is creating technological and economic headaches for education IT departments. Consider Oregon State University, for example, which has 22,000 students and employees and supports them with two leased DS-3 lines that provide a combined bandwidth of 90 Mbit/sec. Even at that, the university has to restrict inbound Internet traffic to 22 Mbit/sec. Internet connections of this kind cost more than $300,000 per year, and that is only for the connection -- not for all the hardware, software, and people needed to maintain it. School districts with a similar number of students and employees face even worse problems, since their schools are spread out over large geographical areas. Most moderately sized school districts probably have Internet connections in the 1-10 Mbit/sec. range and desperately need more bandwidth. E-rate funding (federal subsidies to schools for Internet access) has helped some, but much more needs to be done to support school and district connectivity. It varies widely, but my guess is that it takes a budget category of about one to five times the cost of the Internet connection to support it with people and equipment. So, even if the government gives you the money for your Internet connection, you still have to use large sums of local money to support it. If people only wanted to use the Internet for text-based traffic, such as e-mail and reading text-based Web pages, life would be simple. But such is not the case. People are beginning to expect the Internet to be a multimedia medium that supports voice calls (voice-over IP [Internet protocol]), instant messaging, videoconferencing, streaming video on demand, and MP3 music. Since the Internet was not designed for such things and since these kinds of uses take massive amounts of bandwidth, we've got problems -- big ones. One of the biggest problems facing the Internet community is multimedia instant messaging (IM). I didn't realize that IM or Internet chat was so popular until I polled 100 or so of my university students: more than three-quarters said they used IM daily. …

Internal Consistency and Reliability of a Questionnaire Assessing Organizational Innovation in Two Schools of Dentistry

The objective of this study was to test the internal consistency and test-retest reliability of a questionnaire designed to assess the status of and factors associated with organizational innovation in schools of dentistry. The questionnaire included thirty-three questions that assessed the following six domains: innovation/environment, innovation/leadership, innovation/personal, feedback/environment, feedback/personal, and feedback/interpersonal. A seventh domain, evidence-based learning, assessed the reaction of dental faculty to a scenario where the scientific evidence found a current treatment to be ineffective in improving the health status of patients. The questionnaire was mailed three times to a systematic sample of fifty-six dental faculty working at a research-intensive dental school (RES) and all thirty-nine dental faculty working at a dental school where the emphasis is on clinical education (CL). The two U.S. dental schools had similar numbers of students; however, they differed significantly in their research portfolios. The response rate was 70.5 percent. The seven domains had alpha coefficients ranging between 0.60 and 0.89. The test-retest reliability for the seven domains ranged between 0.65 and 0.92. Dental faculty of the RES school had significantly higher average scores than faculty of the CL school on innovation/leadership, innovation/environment, feedback/environment, and feedback/personal domains. Regression analyses found no differences between the two schools in innovation/environment scores. The innovation/environment scores were significantly associated with innovation/leadership, feedback/environment, feedback/interpersonal, and age. The evidence-based learning domain was negatively associated with the innovation/environment domain, indicating that faculty who were willing to abandon teaching of a treatment found to be ineffective felt that their school environment was not highly innovative. In conclusion, this preliminary study found that the questionnaire reliably assessed six domains representing innovation and feedback. This preliminary study also found that an innovative environment in two schools of dentistry is associated with presence of leaders who promote change and innovation, an environment that encourages feedback, and faculty members who value interpersonal feedback.