METHODS OF SOCIAL RESEARCH

nformation Processing & Management, 2013

This study examined: 1) whether a peripheral cue and subject knowledge influenced the credibility judgments in the context of Wikipedia; and 2) whether certain factors affected heuristic processing in the context of Wikipedia. The theory of bounded rationality and the heuristic-systematic model serve as the basis of this study. Data were collected employing a quasi-experiment and a web survey at a large public university in the Midwestern United States in the fall of 2011. The study participants consisted of undergraduate students from nine courses whose instructors agreed to their participation. A total of 142 students participated in the study, of which a total of 138 surveys were useable. The major findings of this study include the following: a peripheral cue and knowledge influenced the credibility judgments of college students concerning Wikipedia. The effect of a peripheral cue on credibility judgments was not different between those with high versus low knowledge. Finally, perceived credibility was positively related to heuristic processing, but knowledge, cognitive workload or involvement in a topic was not. This study suggests that educators and librarians need to integrate heuristic approaches into their literacy programs, guiding students to effectively use and not blindly accept cues. Wikipedia needs to offer noticeable cues that can help Wikipedia readers assess the credibility of information. The role of perceptions in heuristic processing needs further investigation. Further, this study demonstrates the strength of a peripheral cue on credibility judgments, suggesting that further research is needed when cues lead to effective credibility judgments and when cues lead to biased credibility judgments. Finally, this study provides the suggestion of an integrated model of the theory of bounded rationality and the heuristicsystematic model that can enhance our understanding of heuristics in relation to credibility judgments.

2012

While African American women are one of the largest growing populations in college, they continue to be underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields at predominantly white institutions (PWIs) (Bowen, Chingos, & McPherson, 2009; Jordan, 2006; National Science Foundation, 2007, 2009; Warren, 1998). Some African American women depart science majors, due to school tracking or the leaky pipeline (Blickenstaff, 2005; Bowen, et al., 2009; Jordan, 2006; Oakes, 2005; Rist, 2002). Those African American women who are able to commit to hard science majors have positive self-concepts and form science identities (Gilmartin, Li, & Aschbacher, 2006; Hill, Pettus, & Hedin, 1990; Jordan, 2006). However, these ongoing problems in the previous literature serve as explanations for the underrepresentation of African American women in hard science majors at PWIs. This multiple case research study addresses the gap in the literature on women in STEM fields by employing Black Feminist Thought (see Collins, 2000) along with the concepts of cultural capital (see Bourdieu, 1984, Yosso, 2006), commitment (Locke, Latham, & Erez, 1988), and science identity formation (see Carlone & Johnson, 2007) to examine the persistence of 16 African American women pursuing hard science majors. Using interviews and journal entries, this multiple case research study explored the differences in availability of resources, access to cultural capital, science identity formation, and adversity faced by undergraduate African American women pursuing hard science majors. The main findings from this study were that African American women who persisted in hard science majors had individual interests, support from the home environment, took high school math or science courses that aligned with Town University’s introductory level math and/or science classes. They also learned how to navigate through the science curriculum and committed to the hard science major or a career in a STEM field. Forming partial science identities and having access to traditional and non-traditional forms of cultural capital explained why some African American women remained in hard science majors as well. By overcoming adversity in the science culture, some African American women persisted and thus committed to engaging in hard science majors at Town University. This research contributes to the field of higher education by informing policymakers and researchers about some approaches to facilitate the retention and graduation of African American women in hard science majors throughout the K-16 pipeline. Additionally, it, enriches the literature by employing multiple frameworks (e.g., Black Feminist Thought, cultural capital, science identity formation, commitment) to understand the persistence of African American women in science majors at Town University. Future research studies might examine the persistence of other underrepresented students across multiple institutions in hard science majors using qualitative and quantitative methods.

How We Teach Now provides an accessible introduction to student-centered teaching methods that aim to create varied learning opportunities for students to develop liberal arts and professional skills (such as critical thinking, oral and written communication, collaboration and teamwork) in addition to discipline-specific content knowledge. Chapters describe evidence-based teaching practices informed by a rich literature on the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning that emphasizes the value of active inquiry in fostering student learning and development. The chapters provide lesson plans as well as practical advice on how to shift one’s teaching away from teacher-centered methods, such as lecturing, to more effectively engage students in their own learning. Authors highlight the importance of building rapport and dialogue within the classroom, designing lessons and assessments with careful thought to purpose (i.e., using backward course design) and communicating the learning objectives to students, validating students’ diverse life experiences and background as relevant to their coursework, scaffolding difficult assignments to make them manageable, and using research as a context for cultivating interest in psychological science. The volume is intended for instructors interested in adopting state-of-the art teaching methods to help their students achieve their full potential. Contributors range from expert teachers to graduate student members of the Society for the Teaching of Psychology.

2002

American Association for Higher Education, AAHE Publications Orders, PO Box 1932, Merrifield, VA 22116-1932 (members, $26; nonmembers, $32). Tel: 301-645-6051; Fax: 301-843-9692; Web site: http://www.aahe.org/catalog/order_info.cfm.

Given globalization, increasing awareness and sensitivity has become important activities for instructors. This chapter describes several intercultural communication activities that can serve as writing prompts that promote cultural sensitivity.

Promoting student engagement, 2011

This course will pursue the big questions in life. We will introduce students to the study of philosophy and religion through a variety of texts from a wide range of traditions that ask and propose answers to the question,“What is the Meaning of Life?” Two lectures per week.{H/L} 4 credits

Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 2017

Although studies claim increases in underrepresented populations choosing STEM majors, barriers to retention, and higher education degree completion in STEM still exist. This study examined efforts of a prominent technical university to attract and retain urban high school graduates through a tuition scholarship program. We sought to determine the trajectories of recruited urban high school graduates and explored students reasoning behind their choice of STEM majors. Findings revealed unforeseen obstacles prohibiting students from pursuing STEM degrees despite free tuition and other benefits of the diversity recruitment program. Student obstacles included: (i) logistic barriers; (ii) academic resources access; and (iii) social/cultural support. A secondary but related finding was the self-realization of engineering faculty culpability in the attrition they observed. This critical account of race and privilege told by insiders to the engineering discipline speaks directly to the failure of educational institutions to address essential components of the economic and academic segregation which currently exists against a backdrop of reform calls which aim to diversify the engineering workforce. Implications for future research and recruitment efforts are discussed.

What Is Liberal Education and What Could It Be? European Students On Their Liberal Arts Education, 2017

This ebook is a collection of European students’ voices on their liberal education. It is not a comparative, scholarly study of student experience in liberal education programmes, although it might serve as a first step towards such an inquiry. Rather, it invites its readers to explore the nature, promises, and pitfalls of liberal education in Europe, and to initiate into the diversity of institutional and curricular arrangements, as they are perceived by those who took part in them.

Credit markets serve a vital function in capitalist economies: evaluating the riskiness of a range of possible investments and channeling resources toward those investments that investors believe are most likely to prove successful. This process is known as the “risk-based pricing” of credit. Ideally, risk-based pricing should lead to lower cost of capital for lower risk investment choices with larger rewards, and therefore more investment in such promising activities. Conversely, risk-based pricing should lead to higher costs of capital, and therefore less investment, in high-risk activities with relatively low rewards. If creditors are well informed and analytic, and borrowers respond to financial incentives, then risk-based pricing — compared to uniform credit pricing — leads to a more efficient allocation of society’s limited resources. Although risk-based pricing is standard in business loan markets, and may be increasingly common in consumer credit markets such as mortgages and credit cards, risk-based pricing is seldom used in the market for student loans. Most student loans are extended under Federal Student Loan programs administered by the Department of Education. These federal programs have historically offered loans at rates lower than those offered by most private lenders, on terms that are more attractive to student borrowers, and without adjusting the pricing on loans according to the risks inherent in different courses of study or lending to different types of borrowers. The Federal Student Loan programs — first established in the mid twentieth century to increase the supply of skilled labor, promote economic and technological development, and provide upward socio-economic mobility — are broadly successful: they have provided low cost credit to millions of students; helped increase educational attainment; held administrative costs to below those of the private sector; and generated a profit for the federal government. However, Federal Student Loan programs have not incorporated many recent insights from financial, developmental, and labor economics that distinguish between different types of education. Because of this, Federal Student Loan programs, and more broadly, U.S. labor markets, are not performing at their full potential. There is a large mismatch between the skills workers have and employers’ needs, and this mismatch contributes to structural unemployment, reduced output, and higher student loan defaults. This article argues that introducing risk-based pricing in federal student loans would advance the interests and values that Congress articulated when it first established Federal support for Higher Education. Risk-based pricing of student loans would signal the long-term financial risks inherent in different courses of study. This price signal would likely improve students’ ability to make informed decisions about the course of study that would best balance their innate abilities and individual preferences with postgraduate economic opportunities. Similarly, price signals would enhance post-secondary educational institutions’ ability to adjust their programs to improve their students’ postgraduate prospects. Allocating educational resources more efficiently would not only benefit individual students and their families — it would enhance the productivity and competitiveness of the U.S. labor force, with beneficial consequences for both the private sector and public finances. Over the long term, such efficiencies could increase the resources available for further investment in education and research. Transparent, risk-based student loan pricing could greatly benefit students and educational institutions, particularly if it were data-driven and sensitive to the values of equal opportunity and independent research that are central to the academic enterprise. This article discusses legal and policy reforms that could facilitate risk-based student loan pricing, potential hazards from a shift toward risk-based pricing, and safeguards that could help protect students and educators from abuse. This article focuses primarily on the economic consequences of education rather than on moral or philosophical views about the ideal purpose of education or its proper role in society. The economic focus of this article is not intended to deny the intellectual merit of philosophical views about education, but rather to reflect the fact that government support for Higher Education in the United States has primarily been driven by economic considerations, particularly during the mid-twentieth century when Federal Student Loan programs were established. Part I of this article discusses rationales for government support for higher education, with an emphasis on human capital theory. Part II discusses the U.S. federal student loan system. Part III discusses coordination, information, and incentive problems in the higher education and skilled labor markets. Part IV explains the theory of risk-based credit pricing and how risk-based pricing of federal student loans could ameliorate some of the coordination problems discussed in Part III. Part V discusses predictors of income, employment, and student loan default, and also considers ethical and moral considerations that might limit or preclude the use of certain predictors to risk-adjust student loan pricing.