Student Misperceptions Research Articles

Mental health stigma among college students: misperceptions of perceived and personal stigmas

Objective The purpose of this study was to assess the relationship between college student perceived and personal mental health stigmas. Participants: A sample of 352 undergraduate college students from two large Universities in the Eastern United States was utilized. Methodology: A self-report anonymous online survey was utilized. The survey contained demographics as well as questions to assess participant levels of perceived stigma, personal stigma, and social desirability. Results Results revealed that college student perceived stigma was significantly greater than personal stigma, and that perceived stigma and personal stigma were significantly and positively correlated. Conclusions: Overall findings suggest a misperception of campus mental health stigma levels. Based upon these student misperceptions of stigma, best practices for addressing stigma within the clinical setting are discussed. Overall implications for college counseling centers are presented, including campus outreach strategies.

Breaking the Stereotype: Interventions Aimed at Changing Medical Student Misperceptions of Radiology and Increasing the Female Match Rate

Although nearly half of medical students are female there is still a significant discrepancy in the number of women specializing in radiology. In 2013, 26.9% of US diagnostic radiology residents were female, a 1% increase in 20 years from 25.5% in 1990. The purpose of this project is to determine the effectiveness of the interventions implemented at a single medical school at decreasing negative attitudes about radiology held by medical students of all genders and whether those same interventions will increase the number of female medical students matching into radiology. The interventions were implemented between 2012 and 2016 and included incorporation of radiology into preclinical curriculum, electives in radiology for 3rd year students, a "Women in Radiology Panel," and increase in female radiology faculty visibility. First year medical student participants of all genders used a free text box to write their attitudes about radiology, which were categorized into the "six most common attitudes about radiology." Fourth year medical student participants used a free text box to write the reasons why they did not choose radiology as a specialty, and those answers were then placed into the same six categories. We then analyzed the data using Fisher's Exact Test to determine whether there was a decrease in the negative misperceptions after exposure to the interventions. We also then determined whether there was an increase in the number of women matching into radiology using Chi-Square analysis. There was a decrease in the negative misperceptions between 1st and 4th years, with the most notable decrease from 51% of 1st years to 0% of 4th years listing radiologists as being antisocial (p < 0.01). There was also a significant increase in the number of female medical students matching into radiology in the years in which students were exposed to 4 years of intervention when compared to three and fewer (0.76%-4.2%, p = 0.01). Exposure to 4 years of the interventions demonstrated a significant increase in the female match rate into the specialty when compared to female medical students who experienced three or fewer years of intervention. Additionally, it appears that these same interventions decreased the number of students of all genders having some of the common negative misperceptions about the field of radiology.

Prospective Health Professions Students’ Misperceptions About Pharmacists

Public misperceptions about the pharmacy profession have the potential to impact pharmacy education, practice, and the health of those who pharmacists serve. Student misperceptions of the profession can lead to fewer applicants to pharmacy schools and frustration among pharmacy students and faculty members. With the recent decline in applicants to Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) programs, professional pharmacy organizations, colleges and schools of pharmacy, and individual pharmacists must implement strategies that mitigate these misperceptions. This commentary discusses the potential impact of prospective health students' (ie, students pursuing admission to health professional programs) misperceptions on the supply of quality candidates to PharmD programs. Strategies to elevate the image of the profession at the individual and collegiate level are discussed.

日本の高校生が抱くイスラーム像とその是正に向けた取り組み : 東京・神奈川の高校でのアンケート調査を糸口として（ 学校教育におけるイスラーム）

日本の高校生が抱くイスラーム像とその是正に向けた取り組み : 東京・神奈川の高校でのアンケート調査を糸口として（ 学校教育におけるイスラーム）

Information barriers and social stratification in higher education: evidence from a field experiment.

Our contribution assesses the role of information barriers for patterns of participation in Higher Education (HE) and the related social inequalities. For this purpose, we developed a large-scale clustered randomised experiment involving over 9,000 high school seniors from 62 Italian schools. We designed a counseling intervention to correct student misperceptions of the profitability of HE, that is, the costs, economic returns and chances of success of investments in different tertiary programs. We employed a longitudinal survey to test whether treated students' educational trajectories evolved differently relative to a control group. We find that, overall, treated students enrolled less often in less remunerative fields of study in favour of postsecondary vocational programmes. Most importantly, this effect varied substantially by parental social class and level of education. The shift towards vocational programmes was mainly due to the offspring of low-educated parents; in contrast, children of tertiary graduates increased their participation in more rewarding university fields. Similarly, the redistribution from weak fields to vocational programmes mainly involved the children of the petty bourgeoisie and the working class, while upper class students invested in more rewarding university fields. We argue that the status-maintenance model proposed by Breen and Goldthorpe can explain these socially differentiated treatment effects. Overall, our results challenge the claim that student misperceptions contribute to horizontal inequalities in access to HE.

Starting small in assessment change: short in-class written responses

This paper is focused on an innovation which involved students being assessed on short written responses to an issue to be addressed in the following classroom session. The innovation was evaluated through a student survey, individual and focus-group interviews with participants, and the analysis of a critical friend. Positive findings included promoting student preparation and reflection, and enabling the teacher to understand students’ prior knowledge before the next session. Challenges included some student misperceptions about the assessment innovation, and the difficulty of assessing the short responses efficiently and reliably. The analysis suggests that starting small is a useful principle for assessment change. The discussion also brings out some wider issues of incentives and barriers for assessment innovation, and sketches some related future research directions.

The accuracy of students’ predictions of their GCSE grades

The paper reports a study that investigated the relationship between students’ self-predicted and actual General Certificate of Secondary Education results in order to establish the extent of over- and under-prediction and whether this varies by subject and across genders and socio-economic groupings. It also considered the relationship between actual and predicted attainment and attitudes towards going to university. The sample consisted of 109 young people in two schools being followed up from an earlier study. Just over 50% of predictions were accurate and students were much more likely to over-predict than to under-predict. Most errors of prediction were only one grade out and may reflect examination unreliability as well as student misperceptions. Girls were slightly less likely than boys to over-predict but there were no differences associated with social background. Higher levels of attainment, both actual and predicted, were strongly associated with positive attitudes to university. Differences between predictions and results are likely to reflect examination errors as well as pupil errors. There is no evidence that students from more advantaged social backgrounds over-estimate themselves compared with other students, although boys over-estimate themselves compared with girls.

Good Intentions: Providing Students with Skills to Avoid Accidental Plagiarism

This article explores one librarian's experience with creating and implementing a plagiarism seminar as part of the library liaison program to the School of Public Health and Health Professions at the University at Buffalo. The changes and evolution of the seminar over several iterations are described. This article also examines student perceptions, misperceptions, and reactions to the plagiarism workshop.

School-based tobacco control efforts and the smoking behaviour of high school students in Prince Edward Island, Canada: examining differences

AimThis study examined the factors related to whether or not school-based tobacco control efforts were associated with student smoking behaviour among two groups of students: Group 1 (15–17 years of age; grade 10 in 2000 and grade 11 in 2001) and Group 2 (16–19 years of age; grade 11 in 2000 and grade 12 in 2001).BackgroundBetween 1999 and 2001, Prince Edward Island (PEI) introduced a province-wide initiative to implement both school-based policies banning smoking on school grounds and school-based smoking prevention programming, phased in over a three-year period, in all schools.MethodsData were collected from all 10 English-speaking secondary schools in PEI (Canada) over three years (1999–2001) using the Tobacco Module of the School Health Action, Planning and Evaluation System.FindingsResults showed an increase in both occasional and regular smoking behaviour with Group 1 showing an 18% increase in occasional smoking compared to 3.9% for Group 2. The characteristic associated with an increased likelihood of regular and occasional smoking for 2000 and 2001 was students overestimating the percentage of youth their age who smoke. However, students’ knowledge and awareness of smoking policies and enforcement, students’ perceptions of schools having clear rules, and that students who break the rules get into trouble increased from 2000 to 2001. The findings from this study provide important information about how groups of students within schools experience tobacco control efforts differently. Addressing student misperceptions and policy implementation within schools may provide direction for tobacco control.

An outdoor education body of knowledge

Is there a problem with outdoor education? In his call for papers for this special themed edition of the Australian Journal of Outdoor Education, Glyn Thomas (2005a) suggested that outdoor education suffered from a 'kind of identity crisis'. Both authors of this paper are teachers of a range of subjects in the secondary school system in Victoria, Australia, including the senior Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE) subject Outdoor and Environmental Studies (OES). For both of us the ruminations and deliberations of academics is of interest, but usually not particularly relevant. However, Thomas' call, comes at a significant time for us, as we struggle to maintain the OES subject in the face of budget constraints, increasing school administration pressures, and parental and student misperceptions. So, is there an identity crisis in outdoor education? Brookes (2004) has recently described the failure of outdoor education programs to adequately justify themselves, at least to outsiders. For us, the core of this failure stems from the double-edged nature of outdoor education, at least as it occurs in Victoria. We have two quite distinct outdoor education systems in play in this state: the extra-curricular 'camps' programs that are often run for large groups of students such as entire year levels; and the semester or year length elective subjects including OES, offered as one of a range of academic courses to middle and senior students. Both are called outdoor education, but they have very different learning objectives and pedagogical strategies. Unfortunately, school administrations, non-outdoor education teachers, and students and their parents, have failed to understand the differences, and this has led to our own local crisis - falling student numbers and pressure to limit the experiences we offer. Why, we have asked ourselves, does a recognised academic course such as OES, suffer in a way that other VCE subjects - Sciences, Languages, English, Maths, and so on - do not? Clearly there are a number of factors in the lower level of esteem given to OES, many of which other authors have analysed previously. The course is relatively young, is often costly, and makes significant demands on students and teachers in comparison to many others. Our focus in this paper however, is on the links we draw between the ideas of Brookes (2004), Thomas (2005a) and this perceived crisis in outdoor education. For us, what's lacking is a coherent outdoor education body of knowledge. This paper is an attempt to begin the process of developing such a body of knowledge that might address our concerns about outdoor education subjects in the curriculum. It should become clear that both authors love our work in the outdoors. We are therefore biased in our belief that outdoor education is useful and valuable, which could make this paper seem like an elaborate justification. In a sense this is true, but we deeply believe that outdoor education is an important area of educational curricula, which deserves to be recognised as such by both other educators and the wider community. What is outdoor education? Definitions of outdoor education abound. Neill (2004) cites twenty definitions, but a cursory glance at the international literature suggests that there are probably many more. It's quite possible that the abundance of meanings for outdoor education is one of the key problems that led to us writing this paper in the first place - the crisis in identity in outdoor education may well be fuelled by educators working and communicating about their work at cross purposes from different starting points and definitions. Indeed, this view has been described by others. Lugg (1999) for example, reviews a range of definitions of outdoor education, and suggests that while having many definitions may be valuable, it also might "inhibit meaningful dialogue both within the profession and in the larger community" (p. …

Alcohol use in college: Limitations on the transformation of social norms

This article investigates the impact of an intervention designed to reduce alcohol use among students attending a university in the western United States. After reviewing the literature on the impact of this type of intervention elsewhere, this article describes the development and implementation of the intervention under investigation. Baseline data was collected prior to the initiation of the intervention and follow-up data was collected at one- and two-year intervals. Results indicate that while the intervention had a significant effect on reducing student misperceptions of alcohol use on campus, no significant changes in consumption rates occurred. This article concludes with a discussion of the limitations associated with attempts to transform social norms regarding college alcohol use.

The Challenges of Attracting Graduate Students to Plant Breeding

The challenges of attracting graduate students to plant breeding are to induce more high school students to major in undergraduate plant science programs and to attract these undergraduates to graduate programs in plant breeding. The first challenge will require the formation of an assertive, symbiotic relationship between high school counselors, agricultural recruitment programs, and broad-based science education programs to overcome some of the student misperceptions of science careers. The second challenge will require the successful communication of the opportunities for plant breeding careers to undergraduate plant science majors. The effective involvement of undergraduate teachers with plant breeders, the use of internships and work programs, the formation of interdisciplinary teams, and the use of speakers' bureaus to facilitate this broader communication are suggested to enhance student recruitment efforts.