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In this paper, we present an extended evaluation of a course recommender system designed to support students who struggle in the first semesters of their studies and are at risk of dropping out. The system, which was developed in earlier work using a student-centered design, is based on the explainable k-nearest neighbor algorithm and recommends a set of courses that have been passed by the majority of successful neighbors, that is, students who graduated from the study program. In terms of the number of recommended courses, we found a discrepancy between the number of courses that struggling students are recommended to take and the actual number of courses they take. This indicates that there may be an alternative path that these students could consider. However, the recommended courses align well with the courses taken by students who successfully graduated. This suggests that even students who are performing well could still benefit from the course recommender system designed for at-risk students. In the present work, we investigate a second type of success--a specific minimum number of courses passed--and compare the results with our first approach from previous work. With the second type, the information about success might be already available after one semester instead of after graduation which allows faster growth of the database and faster response to curricular changes. The evaluation of three different study programs in terms of dropout risk reduction and recommendation quality suggests that course recommendations based on students passing at least three courses in the following semester can be an alternative to guide students on a successful path.

Evidence on gender inequality in the labor market is extensive. However, little is known about the potential role of overeducation and horizontal mismatch in explaining women's labor-market disadvantages. We draw on recent data from the Eurograduate pilot survey to investigate the role of overeducation, field-of-study mismatch and field-specific overskilling for gender gaps in labor income in the European landscape. We found considerable variations in the extent of both gender earning gaps (GEGs) and wage gaps (GWGs) across countries. However, our decomposition analyses show that neither overeducation nor horizontal mismatch contribute to explaining these gender gaps. The lack of mediation seems related to either the absence of gender differences in overeducation and horizontal mismatch, or to the nonexistence of income penalties associated with the mismatch.

The recent popularity of benchtop (BT) NMR systems has prompted its applications in undergraduate laboratories around the world. Owing to their low maintenance cost, due to the lack of a superconducting magnetic core, and simple operation, these BT NMR systems can fulfill many of the learning objectives outlined in the undergraduate organic chemistry curricula. With a variety of BT NMR systems currently available (e.g., 43, 60, 80, and 100 MHz), it can be overwhelming for instructors to determine which system is appropriate for their needs. When used as a structure elucidation tool, the focus is often placed solely on solving chemical structures, prompting the eventual question of the magnetic field strength requirements for de novo structure elucidation. To answer this question, two artificial intelligence (AI) software packages, namely Structural Elucidator (v.2020.1.2) from ACD/Laboratories and Mnova Structure Elucidation (v 14.2.3) from Mestrelab Research, were used. These software provide an unbiased, yet separate, metric to gauge the effect of magnetic field strength on the accuracy of the determined structures. For comparison purposes, results from these two BT magnetic field strengths will be compared to those obtained from a high field NMR (500 MHz) spectrometer, providing a complete overview of the advances, as well as limitations in current BT systems for undergraduate education. In addition, the spectral data presented in this work can be used as a practical example in class to illustrate the effect of spectral resolution on the accuracy of determined structures, which is fundamental to understanding structure elucidation within organic chemistry.

The ubiquitous acquisition and generation of data require a reworking of curricula in introductory statistics in tertiary education. We present a renewed curriculum that focuses on scientific thinking, modeling, and simulation-based inference, utilizing R and various R tools such as shiny and learnr apps. We teach statistics from a data-centric perspective, enabling the students to become data literate. Initial feedback of students and educators at our university of applied sciences shows that students' conceptual understanding improved and they understood the practical applicability of statistics better.

Alcohol use is frequently involved in crime, making it crucial to understand the role of alcohol in facial recognition to maximize correct perpetrator identifications. Although the majority of the alcohol and face recognition research has investigated recognition with "retrospective" confidence judgments, we examined the effects of alcohol intoxication on face recognition with "prospective" metacognitive judgments. Participants (N = 54 university students without a history of hazardous alcohol/substance use) consumed either alcohol (mean breath alcohol concentration of 0.06 at pretest and 0.07 at post-test) or a non-alcoholic placebo drink. Participants then studied unfamiliar male and female faces and made judgments of learning (JOLs) for each face (i.e., predicted the likelihood of recognizing that face on a future memory test). After a brief distractor task, participants completed an old--new recognition test on which they attempted to distinguish the studied faces from new faces. It was found that the alcohol manipulation had minimal effect on face recognition performance or judgments of learning. Our results suggest that theory-based cues about the effects of alcohol might play a greater role in retrospective judgments than prospective judgments. Although not a primary focus of the study, face recognition was better for male faces than female faces, and this occurred for both female and male participants. Limitations and implications of the research are discussed.

A recent study by O'Donnell and Sauer (2008) indicated, that over time, the benefit of launching new majors to reduce freshman attrition dissipated. In 2004, new majors had a significant effect on reducing attrition. By 2007, however, these same new majors were no longer significant predictors of attrition. What happened between 2004 and 2007 to cause this erosion in the affect of new majors on attrition? In this study, we examine the differences in perceptions of the innovative characteristics in an effort to explain why this erosion might have occurred. Results of a two-way between subjects ANOVA reveals that new majors began to be perceived as similar to old majors along certain dimensions of innovative characteristics. In particular, differences in the prospects of getting a better job, the perception that the new major was easier, hearing from others that new majors offered better job prospects and that employers preferred new majors, and that new majors were less compatible with student needs and goals, all disappeared by 2007. Nevertheless, new majors were still perceived as requiring more prerequisites, being more likely to require an extra course, and as not being offered at other area colleges and universities relative to old majors. This article discusses the impact and consequences of these findings and proposes future research to be pursued.

Academic performance (i.e., grade point average) determines career entry factors as well as career success and is thus crucial for students' future careers. Besides individual factors such as personality traits, individuals' social embeddedness has been shown to enhance performance. Regarding academic performance, relationships to fellow students (peers), which bundle into one's developmental network, are a valuable source of psychosocial and career support because occupying central positions within a social network provides the benefit of being able to access career-enhancing resources. Integrating individual and social-contextual factors for the purpose of examining academic performance is therefore plausible. Research results indicate that personality, especially extraversion, might predict performance through network centrality. In this study, we examined this assumption by focusing on extraversion and centrality in the peer developmental network of recently acquainted German psychology bachelor students (N = 47, 15% male). In a longitudinal design, we analyzed the impact of extraversion and centrality on students' academic performance at the end of their studies. Results revealed that centrality (i.e., popularity) mediates the relationship of extraversion with academic performance, indicating that extraverted students (regardless of their agreeableness) are more popular among their peers, which, in turn, enhances their academic performance. That is, the likelihood of getting superior final grades depends on whether students manage to attract peers at the very beginning of their university life, which is easier for extraverts. These findings emphasize the importance of the social embeddedness of people, highlight its long-term effects on performance, and yield several implications for research and practice.

Similar to other European countries, the introduction of non-academic, especially managerial, criteria in higher education has shaped and altered Austrian universities since over a decade. This paper presents the results of a frame analysis of Austrian higher education debates from 1993 until 2010. It outlines how reforms in higher education were prepared and enhanced by a new policy discourse, with a special focus on the way gender equality is framed in reform debates. Our article describes three core frames: "from local to global", "from ivory tower to business" and "from civil servant to excellence". We cluster these three frames around imaginations of space that are embedded in the normative foundations of academia, and discuss how this links up with arguments for gender equality. We furthermore propose to analytically separate two conceptions of the university: the "entrepreneurial" and the "managerial" university.

This study examined community and institutional factors that influence offering online workforce development programs in community colleges. The study included a random sample of 321 community college in the United States. Findings conclude that colleges operating under statewide governance structures and in states with more highly centralized statewide practices have more online occupational programs than other types of institutions. In addition, student racial demographics factor into online course offerings. Institutions with higher percentages of White students are more likely to offer online occupational programs. These findings illustrate a potential need for additional online program development in colleges with larger percentages of students of color and raise questions about how states with decentralized systems can increase educational access by facilitating additional online workforce development programs.

Although studies have shown that supplemental instruction (SI) programs can have positive effects in introductory accounting courses, these programs experience low participation rates. Thus, our study is the first to examine the factors leading to student participation in SI programs. We do this through a survey instrument based on the Theory of Planned Behavior. Our study shows that students' attitudes toward the sessions affect their intent to participate in them. This attitude is influenced by students' perceptions that the sessions can help them in various ways. Results also show that influential others can influence student intent to participate in SI sessions. We also note that students' perceptions of the amount of personal control that they have over going to SI sessions have no effect on their participation in the sessions. We discuss how these findings can be leveraged to increase SI participation rates.

Individuals with high levels of depression symptoms and individuals with insecure attachment orientations have been shown to limit their use of emotional disclosure as a means of emotion regulation. However, little is known about how depression symptoms and insecure attachment orientations might jointly predict whether individuals engage in emotional disclosure. The authors addressed this question using both inter- and intraindividual approaches. College students (N = 121) completed measures of depression symptoms, adult attachment orientation, and generalized disclosure tendencies. To obtain an intraindividual measure of emotional disclosure, participants also completed an online daily diary in which they rated the intensity of the day's most unpleasant event and their disclosure of that event for 7 days. Results indicated that depression symptoms were negatively related to generalized disclosure tendencies and to intraindividual daily intensity-disclosure slopes. Attachment avoidance was negatively related to both generalized disclosure tendencies and to daily disclosure, and attachment anxiety moderated the relation between daily event intensity and disclosure. The authors discuss the implications for theory and counseling psychology practice. (Contains 3 tables.)

"These families must be so sad. I just wonder what they do and if they have any type of normal life." "I am not sure how I will work with parents. I think they probably look to the school for a lot of help." These quotes were taken from preservice teachers' papers early in their teacher education program, in which they were asked to describe what they thought about the relationship between educators and families who have children with disabilities. These students were on the verge of an experience, as a part of an introductory class in special education, of spending time with and learning from families who had children with disabilities. This experience is a key aspect of their program, which is designed to (a) help eliminate students' fears and stereotypes about disability, (b) allow students to see families as resources and partners in support of their child's education, and (c) provide an opportunity for students to understand their role as an inclusive educator. This article, which concerns an ongoing study, provides a description of how one teacher education program has sought to engage families with children with disabilities and utilize their expertise in the process of understanding special/inclusive education. The research is part of the effort to develop more reflective, critical teachers who are capable of becoming the inclusive school leaders needed for the 21st century. (Contains 2 notes.)

This study examined the current state of online occupational programs in community colleges and explored issues related to institutional, economic, and social indicators that influence (a) the offering of online programs and (b) the programmatic connection to workforce development needs. The study is based on a random sample of 321 institutions in the United States. This project is the first national study categorizing online occupational programs according to the Career Clusters and Career Pathways classification scheme. Although research has shown that most institutions offer online occupational courses, only 47.5% of colleges in the sample offered credit-granting online occupational programs. Additionally, despite research finding that skill-based programs requiring manipulative skill development can be successfully taught online, this study found that few such programs exist. Finally, our research indicated that occupational program development is not driven by statewide economic indicators, such as the state's fastest growing occupations, suggesting a moderate responsiveness to states' workforce development needs.

An empirical study examined the effects of two influencing factors in usability tests on user performance and usability ratings. Product aesthetics (high vs. low) as the main independent factor and prior usage event (positive vs. negative) as a subsidiary independent factor were varied in a between-participants design. 60 participants took part in the experiment, completing a number of typical tasks of mobile phone users. The results showed that increased product aesthetics had a positive effect on perceived usability and led to longer task completion times. After a negative usage event had been experimentally induced, usability ratings dropped as expected but user performance on subsequent tasks remained unaffected. An important implication of the study is that the aesthetic properties of a product may have multiple effects that go beyond perceived product attractiveness. (Contains 2 figures and 2 tables.)

Training in process control environments requires operators to be prepared for temporal and adaptive transfer of skill. Three training methods were compared with regard to their effectiveness in supporting transfer: Drill & Practice (D&P), Error Training (ET), and procedure-based and error heuristics training (PHT). Communication electronics trainees (N = 61) were tested twice (9 and 13 weeks after training). The D&P group outperformed the ET group with respect to temporal transfer. The expected benefits of PHT and ET for adaptive transfer were not found. The superiority of D&P demonstrates that cognitive tasks also need repeated practice for temporal transfer. (Contains 4 tables and 5 figures.)

Archivists are challenged by many competing demands on their time. The rise of institutional repositories, often located in libraries rather than archives, and the concurrent increase in attention to the changes in scholarly communication may be perceived by archivists as being a demand that is too far from the archives' core mission to warrant attention. This article argues that archivists have much to gain from involvement in--and leadership of--institutional repositories and scholarly communication work at their institutions. (Contains 10 notes.)

Eyewitness identification decisions are vulnerable to various influences on witnesses' decision criteria that contribute to false identifications of innocent suspects and failures to choose perpetrators. An alternative procedure using confidence estimates to assess the degree of match between novel and previously viewed faces was investigated. Classification algorithms were applied to participants' confidence data to determine when a confidence value or pattern of confidence values indicated a positive response. Experiment 1 compared confidence group classification accuracy with a binary decision control group's accuracy on a standard old-new face recognition task and found superior accuracy for the confidence group for target-absent trials but not for target-present trials. Experiment 2 used a face mini-lineup task and found reduced target-present accuracy offset by large gains in target-absent accuracy. Using a standard lineup paradigm, Experiments 3 and 4 also found improved classification accuracy for target-absent lineups and, with a more sophisticated algorithm, for target-present lineups. This demonstrates the accessibility of evidence for recognition memory decisions and points to a more sensitive index of memory quality than is afforded by binary decisions. (Contains 12 tables and 5 footnotes.)

Many organizations strive to improve performance by creating and marketing new products and/or services. Understanding why some new products and services succeed while others fail is critical to managers and marketing researchers. Diffusion of innovation theory addresses the reasons for, and rate of, the adoption of new ideas, products, and services. This theory and its related constructs have been successfully applied to new products while there has been less on emphasis on new services such as educational innovations. Further, research of educational innovations, has focused on adoption by teachers and administrators rather than students. This research study addresses this gap by empirically investigating whether diffusion of innovation theory and constructs apply to student adoption of new academic programs. The study involves surveying undergraduate students from a northeastern college on their perceptions of newly launched and traditional majors. Survey items are adaptations of previous scales as well as new items that relate to the new major decision. The proposed scale utilizes innovation constructs of relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability, and observability. Study results suggest that the diffusion of innovation constructs apply to the new major decision, but contrary to prior research some of the scales are mutli-dimensional rather unidimensial as reported in prior studies. This research study provides useful scales that can be used by marketing professionals and designers of new services, especially in the area of education. Also, study results raises issue for the research community regarding stability of innovation constructs in different settings. (Contains 7 tables.)

A strategy used by industry to retain customers and remain competitive is the design and launch of new products. One might then question whether the launch of new courses and new majors by colleges and universities has the potential of reducing student attrition. Combining survey data from matriculating freshmen with administrative data taken from student records, this study examines this potential. A logistic regression analysis with student attrition as the dependent variable reveals that undergraduate students enrolling in a newly launched major are less likely to drop out of college before graduation. (Contains 3 tables.)

The model presented used available data to predict whether or not a student will drop out at some time during his or her college career. The model successfully identified students who would or would not drop out approximately 80% of the time. Logistic regression analysis was employed to predict chances of attrition for matriculating freshmen soon after freshman orientation. The dependent variable was the probability a student would, at some time in their college experience, drop out of college. The independent or predictor variables included demographics, high school experiences and factor scores based on a survey of attitudes, opinions and values. A two-stage procedure consisting of factor analysis in the first stage and logistic regression in the second stage provided model parameter estimates for each cohort of matriculating freshman in years 2000 to 2003. Empirical tests revealed the model was fully configural invariant in the first stage and partially configural invariant in the second stage. (Contains 9 tables.)

Objective: In the United Kingdom (UK), an objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) has replaced the individual patient assessment (IPA) for part 1 of the membership examination of the Royal College of Psychiatrists (MRCPsych). The authors' assessment of the OSCE was conducted. Method: Residents completed and evaluated an OSCE designed according to guidelines set by the Royal College of Psychiatrists. Results: These residents considered the OSCE fair (86%) and appropriate (89%) in assessing clinical ability. They believed that the OSCE reflected the skills required in clinical practice and found it preferable to the IPA. Conclusion: The OSCE received positive evaluation from residents.

Productive, frequent interactions, both teacher-student and student-student, are essential to the online course environment. Instructors are examining ways not only to foster these interactions but also to engage distance students in their local communities through experiential learning opportunities. Experiential education is a general term used to describe academically related work experience. In addition to preparing students academically, institutions of higher education are called upon to prepare students for the complex issues they will encounter in the workplace. It provides a bridge between learning in the classroom and learning on the job. Over the past decade, colleges and universities have embraced a form of experiential learning called service-learning. Service-learning is a form of experiential education in which students engage in activities that address human and community needs and have structured opportunities to participate in activities designed to promote their learning and development. By providing structured opportunities designed to promote student learning through engagement in the community, service-learning fosters students' critical thinking and interpersonal skills. As the face of higher education evolves with the advent of online formats, it becomes difficult to develop experiences for distance students that continue to provide work-based experiences and engage them as members in their local communities. The challenge then is how to provide a quality experience in service-learning while meeting the needs of multiple students in multiple communities. This type of distributed service-learning is called e-service. This article describes a teacher education program known as DLiTE, or Distributed Learning in Teacher Education, offered by Bemidji State University, a midsize state university in Minnesota. DLiTE is a WebCT-enhanced teacher education preparation program that serves the state of Minnesota. Currently, students in the DLiTE model have service-learning infused into courses beginning in the second semester. They have at least one course with a service-learning experience each concurrent semester thereafter. (Contains 3 endnotes.)

Presents eight current projects involving faculty in the University of Washington's Department of Technical Communication that illustrate the broadening of the field. Notes these projects address: the cognitive processing of visual material; Web-based education; strategic management of information; communicating science and technology in the public arena; digital libraries, international adoption of information and communication technology; multimedia tools for international communication; and outcomes assessment of learning. (PM)

This discusses an educational strategy designed to create a means for students to connect skills introduced in a course sequence during their second professional year with an evaluative Doctor of Pharmacy project conducted later in the curriculum. (Author)

A survey of 754 University of California at San Francisco doctoral pharmacy graduates from 1980 to 1994 investigated how managed care affected practice patterns and perceptions of the profession. Graduates generally remained satisfied with their education and were optimistic about the profession. Although managed care has created a stressful working environment, graduates are finding new opportunities to use their clinical expertise. (MSE)

Internal working models of close relationships include a "self model" of one's own worth and an "other model" embodying core expectations about others. Interrelationships between self-model differences and self-reported problems, and among other-model differences, problem levels, and help-seeking attitudes of college students (N=253) were investigated. Counseling implications are discussed. (Author/EMK)

Gender and lowest stage of cognitive development were found to significantly contribute to the variance in lower levels of white racial identity in a study of white counselor trainees (N=82). Significant relationships were not found between the higher stages of cognitive development and higher levels of white racial identity. Examines gender differences. (Author/MKA)

Described is a method for the illustration of the statistical nature of measurements in quantum physics by means of simulation with pocket calculators. The application to examples like the double-slit experiment, Mott scattering, and the demonstration of the uncertainty relation is discussed. (Author/HM)

Describes a one-dimensional model for an ideal gas to study development of disordered motion in Newtonian mechanics. A Monte Carlo procedure for simulation of the statistical ensemble of an ideal gas with fixed total energy is developed. Compares both approaches for a pseudoexperimental foundation of statistical mechanics. (Author/JN)

A survey of research administrators reports perceived factors enabling interdisciplinary research in agricultural experiment stations. Among the issues discussed are the need for such research and incentives to individual scientists, departments, and institutions to undertake research projects. (MSE)

A course was developed at the University of California, San Francisco, School of Pharmacy, addressing issues facing women. Female students discussed career planning and management, the complexities of balancing career and family life, and career commitment. The technique of structured role-model analysis was used. (Author/MLW)

The model presented used available data to predict whether or not a student will drop out at some time during his or her college career. The model successfully identified students who would or would not drop out approximately 80% of the time. Logistic regression analysis was employed to predict chances of attrition for matriculating freshmen soon after freshman orientation. The dependent variable was the probability a student would, at some time in their college experience, drop out of college. The independent or predictor variables included demographics, high school experiences and factor scores based on a survey of attitudes, opinions and values. A two-stage procedure consisting of factor analysis in the first stage and logistic regression in the second stage provided model parameter estimates for each cohort of matriculating freshman in years 2000 to 2003. Empirical tests revealed the model was fully configural invariant in the first stage and partially configural invariant in the second stage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]