Can a five minute, three question survey foretell first-year engineering student performance and retention?

This research paper examines first-year student performance and retention within engineering. A considerable body of literature has reported factors influencing performance and retention, including high school GPA and SAT scores,1,2,3 gender,4 self-efficacy,1,5 social status,2,6,7 hobbies,4 and social integration.6,7 Although these factors can help explain and even partially predict student outcomes, they can be difficult to measure; typical survey instruments are lengthy and can be invasive of student privacy. To address this limitation, the present paper examines whether a much simpler survey can be used to understand student motivations and anticipate student outcomes. The survey was administered to 347 students in an introductory Engineering Graphics and Design course. At the beginning of the first day of class, students were given a three-question, open-ended questionnaire that asked: “In your own words, what do engineers do?”, “Why did you choose engineering?”, and “Was there any particular person or experience that influenced your decision?” Two investigators independently coded the responses, identifying dozens of codes for both motivations for pursuing engineering and understanding of what it is. Five hypotheses derived from Dweck’s mindset theory7 and others8,9 were tested to determine if particular codes were predictive of first-semester GPA or first-year retention in engineering. Codes that were positively and significantly associated with first-semester GPA included: explaining why engineers do engineering or how they do it, stating that engineers create ideas, visions, and theories, stating that engineers use math, science, physics or analysis, and expressing enjoyment of math and science, whereas expressing interest in specific technical applications or suggesting that engineers simplify and make life easier were negatively and significantly related to first-semester GPA. Codes positively and significantly associated with first-year retention in engineering included: stating that engineers use math or that engineers design or test things, expressing enjoyment of math, science, or problem solving, and indicating any influential person who is an engineer. Codes negatively and significantly associated with retention included: citing an extrinsic motivation for pursuing engineering, stating that they were motivated by hearing stories about engineering, and stating that parents or family pushed the student to become an engineer. Although many prior studies have suggested that student self-efficacy is related to retention,1,5 this study found that student interests were more strongly associated with retention. This finding is supported by Dweck’s mindset theory: students with a “growth” mindset (e.g., “I enjoy math”) would be expected to perform better and thus be retained at a higher rate than those with a “fixed” mindset (e.g., “I am good at math”).7 We were surprised that few students mentioned activities expressly designed to stimulate interest in engineering, such as robotics competitions and high school engineering classes. Rather, they cited general interests in math, problem solving, and creativity, as well as family influences, all factors that are challenging for the engineering education community to address. These findings demonstrate that relative to its ease of administration, a five minute survey can indeed help to anticipate student performance and retention. Its minimalism enables easy implementation in an introductory engineering course, where it serves not only as a research tool, but also as a pedagogical aid to help students and teacher discover student perceptions about engineering and customize the curriculum appropriately

Seniors sentiment index

The ageing of the Australian population presents numerous opportunities and it is important to understand how senior Australians view different aspects of their own lives, as well as life in Australia more generally.  A summary index is a valuable means of understanding the sentiment of mature age people, and it can be tracked across time as well as across different socio-economic and demographic groups in the population. In this report we present findings from the Seniors Sentiment Index to provide insight into the lives of senior Australians in the past, present and future. Previous research measuring aspects of the lives of senior Australians has focused on economic issues, such as income replacement ratios and other economic indicators, with less consideration given to health and social issues. For example, the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (ASFA) Retirement Standard presents the annual budget needed by Australians to live comfortably or modestly after retirement, given their place of residence and marital status. 1 Similarly, Treasury have projected income replacement rates to compare spending power before and after retirement for a hypothetical individual given a range of assumptions. 2 Although these measures are very useful for financial planning for retirement, they miss many other important aspects of the lives of mature age people. This is the focus of the Seniors Sentiment Index. With this Index, we plan to decompose the aspects important to wellbeing in later life – such as social wellbeing and health – in addition to financial wellbeing. Further, we will assess differences across a range of socio-economic and demographic characteristics and, importantly, use this first measurement of the Index as a baseline from which we can track the Index over time. Assessment of trends in the Index will illustrate how the circumstances of senior Australians change through successive governments, policy changes and exogenous policy shocks. Image: PatrickQ / flick

Student questioning : a componential analysis

This article reviews the literature on student questioning, organized through a modified version of Dillon's (1988a, 1990) componential model of questioning. Special attention is given to the properties of assumptions, questions, and answers. Each of these main elements are the result of certain actions of the questioner, which are described. Within this framework a variety of aspects of questioning are highlighted. One focus of the article is individual differences in question asking. The complex interactions between students' personal characteristics, social factors, and questioning are examined. In addition, a number of important but neglected topics for research are identified. Together, the views that are presented should deepen our understanding of student questioning

Nurses Caring for Adults with Autism in an Emergency Department: A Survey of Knowledge

Autism is a complex neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by social impairments, communication difficulties, and restricted, repetitive, and stereotyped patterns of behavior. The nurse (RN) in the emergency department (ED) plays an important role in the receiving, treatment, and management of the patient with autism. RNs must understand the unique challenges of caring for individuals with autism. Fortunately, autism is an active area of research, with copious resources available to assist those affected by this disorder; however, no studies were found evaluating nurses’ knowledge of autism and the number of resources for nurses caring for this population was limited. Nursing is an information-intensive profession and the information obtained from this survey of knowledge and beliefs was valuable in identifying the ED nurse’s educational needs and providing support for the provision of accurate information to health care professionals. This survey found a slight majority of ED nurses having accurate knowledge, correctly identifying causes and comorbidities, and choosing appropriate interventions. This survey confirmed the limited knowledge and resources available for ED RNs. Further research on nursing care of adults with ASD is clearly warranted

NORMS, SELF-SANCTIONING, AND CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE PUBLIC GOOD

The relationship between norms, self-sanctioning, and people’s decisions about contributing to public goods is complex and often misunderstood in the public goods literature. We develop a model in which individuals hold an injunctive norm indicating how much they believe one should contribute to the public good. From the model we derive the following testable hypotheses: an increase in one’s perception of the norm level of contribution to the public good (1) induces negative self-sanctioning and (2) will lead one to contribute more to the public good, and (3) that contributing to the public good induces positive self-sanctioning. To test these hypotheses, we elicit stated preferences for contributions to an organization which offsets carbon emissions and a proxy for self-sanctioning, change in respondent “self-image.”public goods, norms, sanctioning, image, Environmental Economics and Policy, Public Economics, H4, Q5, D0,

Study of Influencing Factors on Users’ Knowledge Contribution Behaviors in Social Q & A Communities

Social Q&A communities are important platforms for knowledge sharing among online users nowadays. Therefore, it is of theoretical and practical significance to understand the motivations behind users’ knowledge contribution behaviors in social Q&A communities. Drawing on a dataset from Stack Overflow, one of the largest Q&A sites worldwide, this paper aims to explore the factors that may influence users’ knowledge contribution behaviors. In particular, we examined factors related to three aspects: social interactivity, social capital and questions readability. Based on related theories we proposed several hypothesis and then tested these hypothesis using an econometric model. Our research results established the relationship between user’s knowledge contribution behaviors and factors related to social interactivity, social capital and questions readability. This paper contributes to literature related to studies on Social Q&A communities

Financial literacy among the young: evidence and implications for consumer policy

We examined financial literacy among the young using the most recent wave of the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. We showed that financial literacy is low; fewer than one-third of young adults possess basic knowledge of interest rates, inflation, and risk diversification. Financial literacy was strongly related to sociodemographic characteristics and family financial sophistication. Specifically, a college-educated male whose parents had stocks and retirement savings was about 45 percentage points more likely to know about risk diversification than a female with less than a high school education whose parents were not wealthy. These findings have implications for consumer policy. JEL Classification: D9