Papers by Alberto Cabrera
1998 Annual Conference Proceedings
The nature of the classroom experience has recently regained recognition as one of the most signi... more The nature of the classroom experience has recently regained recognition as one of the most significant factors influencing college students' cognitive and affective development. While knowledge of the role of classroom experiences is extensive in general education (Pascarella & Terenzini, 1991), the influences of these experiences among engineering students is as yet little understood. The absence of such information presents colleges and schools of engineering with major problems. Industry and the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) are bringing increasing pressure on engineering schools to produce graduates who are prepared to engage in unstructured problem solving and to work in groups. ABET is also moving to an assessment-based reaccreditation review process, requiring institutions to produce evidence that their programs "prepare graduates for the practice of engineering at a professional level" (Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology, 1997, p. 41). This paper reports the results of a project that developed and validated a measure of classroom activities and student learning outcomes among undergraduate students enrolled in engineering courses. The measure was pilot tested at six of the seven colleges of engineering that make up the Engineering Coalition of Schools for Excellence in Education and Leadership (ECSEL). With support from the National Science Foundation, ECSEL has sought (among its several goals) to enhance undergraduate engineering students' learning through the introduction and diffusion of design throughout the undergraduate engineering curriculum on their campuses. The fundamental question examined in this study was whether design activities (including working in teams; unstructured, practical, problem-solving activities; the hands-on application of scientific and engineering theory and principles to realworld problems, and extensive, active student involvement in the teaching-learning process) are any more effective in developing students' engineering skills than are more traditional and widespread instructional practices, such as lectures and discussions. Methods To address that question, the ECSEL evaluation group at the Center for the Study of Higher Education (CSHE) at the Pennsylvania State University developed the "Classroom Activities and Outcomes Survey." This pencil-and-paper, multiple-choice questionnaire was pilot-tested at the end of the Spring, 1997 semester. Because this data collection was a pilot test for a larger, more systematic assessment planned for Spring, 1998, participating courses and students were not randomly selected.
Trajectories in higher education and the University for All Program (ProUni) are the central them... more Trajectories in higher education and the University for All Program (ProUni) are the central theme of this paper. The research question was: To what extent were some factors experienced during university difficulties in the academic trajectory of ProUni and non-ProUni graduates? The approach was quantitative with an explanatory goal. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used in the data analysis. The research subjects were 197 higher education graduates from a Southern Brazil nonprofit institution who entered in 2005. 57 were ProUni scholarship holders and 140 were non-ProUni. Results indicate that the highest percentage of graduates who worked during college were not scholarship holders. A T-test was performed after creating the scales for external (p = 0.19) and internal (p = 0.66) factors, indicating that in both factors there was no statistically significant difference between being a ProUni scholarship holder or not and the difficulties presented during their academic trajectory. Results indicate the need for studies involving the set of higher education graduates in order to better understand the difficulties faced by both groups of students in their academic trajectories.
Philanthropy & education, 2018
Trajectories in higher education and the University for All Program (ProUni) are the central them... more Trajectories in higher education and the University for All Program (ProUni) are the central theme of this paper. The research question was: To what extent were some factors experienced during university difficulties in the academic trajectory of ProUni and non-ProUni graduates? The approach was quantitative with an explanatory goal. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used in the data analysis. The research subjects were 197 higher education graduates from a Southern Brazil nonprofit institution who entered in 2005. 57 were ProUni scholarship holders and 140 were non-ProUni. Results indicate that the highest percentage of graduates who worked during college were not scholarship holders. A T-test was performed after creating the scales for external (p = 0.19) and internal (p = 0.66) factors, indicating that in both factors there was no statistically significant difference between being a ProUni scholarship holder or not and the difficulties presented during their academic trajectory. Results indicate the need for studies involving the set of higher education graduates in order to better understand the difficulties faced by both groups of students in their academic trajectories.
Ensaio: Avaliação e Políticas Públicas em Educação, 2017
Trajectories in higher education and the University for All Program (ProUni) are the central them... more Trajectories in higher education and the University for All Program (ProUni) are the central theme of this paper. The research question was: To what extent were some factors experienced during university difficulties in the academic trajectory of ProUni and non-ProUni graduates? The approach was quantitative with an explanatory goal. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used in the data analysis. The research subjects were 197 higher education graduates from a Southern Brazil nonprofit institution who entered in 2005. 57 were ProUni scholarship holders and 140 were non-ProUni. Results indicate that the highest percentage of graduates who worked during college were not scholarship holders. A T-test was performed after creating the scales for external (p = 0.19) and internal (p = 0.66) factors, indicating that in both factors there was no statistically significant difference between being a ProUni scholarship holder or not and the difficulties presented during their academic tr...
Resumo: Este artigo tem como cerne os resultados da formação na Educação Superior. Os participant... more Resumo: Este artigo tem como cerne os resultados da formação na Educação Superior. Os participantes da pesquisa foram bolsistas e não bolsistas ProUni já egressos da Educação Superior de uma Instituição Comunitária do Sul do Brasil ingressantes nesse nível de ensino em 2005. Os objetivos pretenderam responder três questões da pesquisa: Qual a situação dos egressos ProUni e não ProUni no mercado de trabalho e como ela difere entre os dois grupos de graduados? Em que medida o ProUni motiva o egresso prounista a continuar estudando? Qual a satisfação dos egressos ProUni e não ProUni com aspectos relacionados à sua formação e ao seu trabalho e como ela difere entre os dois grupos de graduados? A metodologia usada teve cunho quantitativo e objetivo explicativo. Estatística descritiva e de inferência foram usadas na análise dos dados. Os resultados indicam o ProUni como tendo papel importante na formação da primeira geração de graduados. Também apontam que o ProUni coloca seus graduados no mesmo patamar de satisfação que seus colegas não ProUni no que diz respeito à formação, à realização de cursos após a graduação e à satisfação com fatores extrínsecos e intrínsecos referentes ao estar graduado, bem como à associação entre formação versus trabalho e a remuneração conquistada. Os resultados sinalizam a necessidade de pesquisas em âmbito nacional, envolvendo egressos da Educação Superior, bolsistas e não bolsistas.
Revista de Investigación Educativa
Assessing graduate student education is a complex task. After all, graduate education is the resu... more Assessing graduate student education is a complex task. After all, graduate education is the result of a complex process involving course experiences, teaching, engagement in learning, mastery of skills, the ability to work with others and satisfaction with what is learned. This paper reports the results of a study seeking to document underlying dimensions of student experiences with their graduate education programs in Brazil. Confirmatory factor analysis reveals that student experiences with graduate education underscore three interrelated constructs: Engagement in learning, Collaborative Learning, and Intellectual Growth. The survey instrument that informed this study can contribute to the self-assessment of Graduate Programs in Education by accreditation agencies as the Brazilian’s Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES). Assessing graduate student instruction is a complex task. After all, graduate education is the result of an intricate exercise i...
Revista Cocar, 2023
Competências transversais na formação integral de egressos de um curso de pedagogia Transversal c... more Competências transversais na formação integral de egressos de um curso de pedagogia Transversal competencies in the complete education of graduates from a pedagogy course
F inancial assistance to college students increased from a meager $557 million in 1963-1964 (Lewi... more F inancial assistance to college students increased from a meager $557 million in 1963-1964 (Lewis 1989) to a phenomenal $55.7 billion in 1996-1997 ("Average Cost of Tuition" 1997). Because of the enormity of this investment it is not surprising that a single policy question-How do prices and student subsidies influence the ability of students to persist?-has motivated much of the research on the economic aspects of persistence over three decades (St. John 1994). The economic studies examine how financial assistance equalized opportunities to persist in college for those students in need of financial support (St. John et al. 1994; Andrieu and St. John 1993; Astin 1975; Terkla 1985). However, because financial aid is not the only reason students persist in college (e.g., Stampen and Cabrera 1986, 1988), recently researchers have developed more complete models that seek to explain how finances interact with other factors that influence college persistence (e.g., Cabrera, Nor...
Journal of Latinos and Education, 2022
This study sought to examine how Latina/o college graduates engage civically. Through a four-ste... more This study sought to examine how Latina/o college graduates engage civically. Through a four-step quantitative design, we found that Latina/o college graduates vote, volunteer, advocate, donate money, serve as cultural and political resources, and run for elected office. We also identified five typologies, or classes, of civically engaged Latina/o college graduates: Activistas, Mentores, Politicos, Votantes, and Indiferentes. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.
Journal of Latinos and Education, 2022
This study sought to examine how Latina/o 1 college graduates engage civically. Through a four-st... more This study sought to examine how Latina/o 1 college graduates engage civically. Through a four-step quantitative design, we found that Latina/o college graduates vote, volunteer, advocate, donate money, serve as cultural and political resources, and run for elected office. We also identified five typologies, or classes, of civically engaged Latina/o college graduates: Activistas, Mentores, Politicos, Votantes, and Indiferentes. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.
Revista de Investigacion Educativa, 2022
Assessing graduate student instruction is a complex task. After all, graduate education is the re... more Assessing graduate student instruction is a complex task. After all, graduate education is the result of an intricate exercise involving course experiences, teaching, learning engagement, skill-building, collaboration, and learning satisfaction. This article presents the results of a study seeking to assist in the assessment of graduate education in Brazil through a survey about graduate education experiences. A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), performed on 462 graduate students of various master's and doctoral programs from six Brazilian universities, indicates that student experiences with graduate education underscore three interrelated processes: Engagement in Learning, Collaborative Learning, and Intellectual Growth. The survey that informs this study can contribute to the self-assessment of graduate programs in Education at different faculties and universities, while also facilitating regular graduate education assessment by accreditation agencies such as the Brazilian's Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES).
International Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Marketing, 2017
Higher education leaders in the United States increasingly rely on relationships with alumni to a... more Higher education leaders in the United States increasingly rely on relationships with alumni to advance multiple institutional goals. Scholars have traditionally relied on variable-centered approaches to understand associations among alumni experiences, personal attributes, and support behaviors. Departing from this tradition, this study draws on a person-centered approach, latent class analysis, to segment groups of alumni by their non-monetary support behaviors. We define non-monetary support as engaging in actions outside of charitable giving that advance institutional objectives. Drawing on past literature, we conceptualize alumni non-monetary support behaviors as falling into 4 categories: (a) volunteerism: charitable preferences, (b) political advocacy: social change preferences, (c) multimode engagement: charity and social change, and (d) disengagement: nonsupport. Relying on an alumni survey from a research-intensive university in the United States, our analysis found support for a 4-class model of alumni supporters and nonsupporters. These groupings include the classes of Political Advocates, Apolitical Recruiters, Super Engaged Alumni, and Disengaged Alumni. Using cross-tabulation analysis, we explore attributes of each class by age, gender, and involvement in religious, political, and volunteer organizations in college. We find that groups of alumni exhibit the same patterns of engagement while they were students. For example, students who were engaged in political action in college are those who are likely to become Political Engagers as alumni. Students who volunteered in college and stayed clear of politics emerge as Apolitical Recruiters after college. Super Engaged Alumni are those who were engaged in multiple domains in college. Implications for advancement practice are discussed.
2001 Annual Conference Proceedings
ABET self-study directions require engineering departments to discuss the competence of their fac... more ABET self-study directions require engineering departments to discuss the competence of their faculty. This paper describes the structure, content, and measurement characteristics of a Webbased Engineering Faculty Survey that addresses ABET requirements to assess "the overall competence of faculty." The survey can also be used as a diagnostic to assess what individual and organizational factors are associated with teaching methods such as team-based design projects or use of traditional lecture and textbook problem sets. The Engineering Faculty Survey, developed for the NSF-funded ECSEL coalition, gathers information about individual demographic characteristics, industry and academic experience, sources and applications (education or basic research) of funding, publication productivity, teaching goals, selfassessment of skills, perceptions of rewards and resources available for teaching, and teaching methods. Analyses reveal contrasting sets of variables associated with the use of team-based design projects and traditional teaching methods.
education policy analysis archives, 2018
The focus of this article is the access to Higher Education in Brazil and the University for All ... more The focus of this article is the access to Higher Education in Brazil and the University for All Program (ProUni). The research aimed to understand if ProUni is complying with its objective of creating opportunities to students from vulnerable groups for accessing Higher Education, and if there are differences in the baseline characteristics of ProUni graduates and non-ProUni graduates when admitted in a Higher Education. Using a quantitative approach with explanatory goal, data were analyzed via descriptive and inference statistics. Survey participants included 57 ProUni and 140 non-ProUni graduates; all were already Higher Education graduates from a non-profit institution in Southern Brazil and had accessed this level of education in 2005. The results show that ProUni provided access to Higher Education to a younger group of students than the non-ProUni group. The ProUni group also contained a larger number of women and a higher proportion of non-whites than the other group. Among...
Journal of College Student Retention: Research, Theory and Practice, 2010
Using a newly developed software application entitled The Community College Transfer Calculator©,... more Using a newly developed software application entitled The Community College Transfer Calculator©, this article both quantifies the effect of specific course-taking patterns and stresses the need for an easy to understand tool for community college academic advisors, faculty, and students. The “Calculator” calculates the likelihood of transfer given specific demographic and courses taken and/or scheduled. Moreover, the user can see the difference in the likelihood of transfer that changes in course-taking predict.
The Review of Higher Education, 2014
ABSTRACT Various commissions and reports have called on colleges and universities to better prepa... more ABSTRACT Various commissions and reports have called on colleges and universities to better prepare students for participation in a democratic society. A limit of such reports is that they often fail to consider how students might be categorized relative to their shared patterns of civic behaviors. Relying on alumni survey data from American College Testing (ACT), we employ latent class analysis (LCA) and identify four classes of college students that vary in their preferences for certain types of civic and noncivic activity. Implications for future research and the development of civic learning programs are discussed.
The Journal of Higher Education, 2017
ABSTRACT This study examined the differences between U.S. civilian and military children in their... more ABSTRACT This study examined the differences between U.S. civilian and military children in their attainment of milestones toward college during a period of burgeoning military deployment (2002–2004). In spite of this intensive deployment, the process of attainment of milestones toward college among military children from Grade 10 to Grade 12 was remarkably similar to that of civilian children.
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Papers by Alberto Cabrera