Predicting Faculty Intentions to Assign Writing in Their Classes

Teachers who offer undergraduate courses agree widely on the importance of writing assignments to further undergraduate education. And yet, there is a great deal of variance among teachers in their writing assignments; some teachers assign no writing whatsoever. To determine the variables that influence the decisions of teachers about whether to assign writing, we predicted their intentions to assign writing from attitudes, subjective norms, perceived control, and perceived difficulty pertaining to assigning writing. Zero-order correlations and hierarchical regression analyses implicate attitude and perceived difficulty as the most important predictors of teacher’s intentions to assign writing in two studies. We also obtained open-ended belief statements in Study 1 and used them to obtain quantitative belief data in Study 2 to find and validate the importance of the impact of particular specific beliefs on intentions to assign writing

The management of expatriates : contemporary developments and future challenges

The rapid growth of international business at a time when many multinational companies (MNCs) are under increasing cost pressures has led these organisations to take a much closer look at their expatriation policies and practices. Faced with unprecedented levels of foreign competition at home and abroad, firms are beginning to recognise not only that international business is high on top management's list of priorities but that finding and nurturing the human resources required to implement an international strategy is of critical importance (Dowling et al., 1994). Much of the research on the management of expatriates currently available is drawn from research focused on North American multinationals. Adler (1997) commented that most research on international human resource management was concerned with American expatriates and continues to be written from an American rather than an international perspective. This introduction seeks to highlight the growth of research into expatriation to set the context for the five papers in this special edition that both add to some traditional areas of expatriate research and open up new fields relevant to this area of enquiry in international management and international business

To enhance collaborative learning and practice network knowledge with a virtualization laboratory and online synchronous discussion

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Internatinal License.Recently, various computer networking courses have included additional laboratory classes in order to enhance students' learning achievement. However, these classes need to establish a suitable laboratory where each student can connect network devices to configure and test functions within different network topologies. In this case, the Linux operating system can be used to operate network devices and the virtualization technique can include multiple OSs for supporting a significant number of students. In previous research, the virtualization application was successfully applied in a laboratory, but focused only on individual assignments. The present study extends previous research by designing the Networking Virtualization-Based Laboratory (NVBLab), which requires collaborative learning among the experimental students. The students were divided into an experimental group and a control group for the experiment. The experimental group performed their laboratory assignments using NVBLab, whereas the control group completed them on virtual machines (VMs) that were installed on their personal computers. Moreover, students using NVBLab were provided with an online synchronous discussion (OSD) feature that enabled them to communicate with others. The laboratory assignments were divided into two parts: Basic Labs and Advanced Labs. The results show that the experimental group significantly outperformed the control group in two Advanced Labs and the post-test after Advanced Labs. Furthermore, the experimental group's activities were better than those of the control group based on the total average of the command count per laboratory. Finally, the findings of the interviews and questionnaires with the experimental group reveal that NVBLab was helpful during and after laboratory class

The Relationship Between Job Satisfaction, Cross-cultural Adjustment, and the Adjustment of the Trailing Spouse on Female Expatriate Success: A Preliminary Review and Survey Proposal

As the world continually moves towards globalization and a diverse work environment, the need for employed female expatriates has never been greater. The purpose of this study is to develop a better understanding of the factors affecting the successful adjustment of these women. This was done by analyzing data provided by the InterNations database in relation to three things: cross-cultural adjustment, job satisfaction, and the experience of the trailing spouse. Based on this study, it was determined that there is a need to research the effects of marital and familial status on turnover intentions during female expatriate assignments. A survey assessing the satisfaction and turnover intention rates between married women, married women with children, single women, and single women with children on expatriate assignments was proposed

No context, no content, no problem

Recently, philosophers have offered compelling reasons to think that demonstratives are best represented as variables, sensitive not to the context of utterance, but to a variable assignment. Variablists typically explain familiar intuitions about demonstratives—intuitions that suggest that what is said by way of a demonstrative sentence varies systematically over contexts—by claiming that contexts initialize a particular assignment of values to variables. I argue that we do not need to link context and the assignment parameter in this way, and that we would do better not to

What Works for Adolescent Reproductive Health: Lessons from Experimental Evaluations of Programs and Interventions

This Child Trends fact sheet reviews evaluated programs that focus on adolescent reproductive health. Among the findings: Many different types of programs have been shown to positively affect reproductive health outcomes. Not only school- and community-based sex education programs, but also clinic-based programs, youth development programs, service-learning programs, early childhood programs, and programs for young mothers have been found to be effective. Comprehensive sex education can improve adolescent reproductive health. Of the 21 comprehensive sex education programs that have been experimentally evaluated, 11 had a significant positive impact on the behavior of the youth studied or important subgroups of the sample. No abstinence-only interventions have yet been shown to positively affect any behavioral outcomes. Six abstinence-only interventions have had their impacts on behavioral outcomes experimentally evaluated. None has had an impact on initiation of sexual intercourse, frequency of sexual activity, number of sexual partners, use of condoms, use of contraceptives, pregnancies, births, or STD contraction. None of these six abstinence-only interventions have been shown to negatively affect any behavioral outcomes, either. In particular, in spite of their exclusive focus on abstinence, none have served to significantly decrease condom or contraceptive use. The fact sheet includes a table that shows whether the evaluated programs were found to work, not proven to work, or had mixed findings

Review on learning orientations

The need has arises towards the consideration of individual difference to let learners engage in and responsible for their own learning, retain information longer, apply the knowledge more effectively, have positive attitudes towards the subject, have more interest in learning materials, score higher and have high intrinsic motivation level. As regard to the importance of individual differences, Martinez (2000) has grounded a new theory, which is Intentional Learning Theory that covered individual aspects of cognitive, intention, social and emotion. This theory hypothesizes that the fundamental of understanding how individual learns, interact with an environment, performs, engages in learning, experiences learning, and assimilate and accommodate the new knowledge is by understanding individual’s fundamental emotions and intentions about how to use learning, why it is important, when the suitable time, and how it can accomplish personal goals and change. The intent of this theory is to focus on emotions and intentions of an individual regarding why, when and how learning goals are organized, processed, and achieved. In conclusion, Learning Orientations introduced by this theory describes the disposition of an individual in approaching, managing and achieving their learning intentionally and differently from others

Considering Disaster Volunteer Behavior and the Work Environment in Managerial Decision Making

Over the last two decades, large-scale disaster events have significantly increased in frequency and intensity, causing tremendous loss of lives and property. A large number of relief organizations rely on their volunteers to respond to many disasters around the globe, serving people and communities in need. While their contributions are priceless, turnover among disaster volunteers has become a significant problem for these relief organizations. Work environment factors, such as volunteers being mismatched with tasks, unsuitable workloads, and conflict within groups of volunteers may give rise to turnover intentions, which may in turn lead to actual turnover. The link between work environment factors and volunteer turnover intentions in these situations has not yet received considerable attention in terms of quantitative research. Therefore, the purpose of this dissertation is to develop quantitative models that consider the factors that may cause turnover or turnover intentions. The goal of these models is to help decision makers for non-governmental organizations (NGOs) better manage their disaster volunteers during relief efforts, with the aim of satisfying community needs and improving volunteer retention rates. The first study addresses a gap in volunteer staff planning and scheduling where volunteer training is first presented, with volunteer turnover represented as a percentage of volunteer–task mismatch. We have developed a mixed-integer programming model for assigning optimal volunteer assignments based on a range of possible short- and long-term community need scenarios. The objective is to minimize the costs of unmet community needs, volunteer attrition due to mismatch assignments, and volunteer expenses. Under different demand scenarios, the optimum solution of volunteer assignment is to allow unskilled volunteers to start training early so that they can help skilled volunteers when a peak of long-term skilled task demand is expected. The second study investigates the effects of work environment factors on the satisfaction level and turnover intentions of disaster volunteers. Using an online survey, data from 386 disaster volunteers are collected and analyzed. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modeling are used to test the measurement model and answer research questions focused on volunteer behavior. After assessing and confirming the measurement model, we use the structural model to test the hypotheses and provide prediction equations. Job-fit, training, workload, volunteer group, and supervisor are the key work environment factors considered in this study. The findings suggest that these work environment factors have a positive significant relationship with satisfaction and a negative significant relationship with turnover intentions. The last study focuses on developing a simulation modeling approach that considers a volunteer’s satisfaction and turnover intentions in relation to management decisions of an NGO during a relief event. We use a survey to gather information from disaster volunteer managers about how they manage their volunteer teams and use this information and the findings from the second study to model a realistic relief event. We develop a hybrid simulation model, agent based and discrete event (AB-DE), that handles volunteer task and location assignments, as well as workload. Using data analysis from the surveys, we also introduce a group conflict variable within the simulation model. We evaluate the impact of different management decisions on unmet community needs, as well as on volunteer satisfaction and turnover intentions from the organization. This study uses a numerical example based on the survey data. Considering the scenario in which disaster volunteer managers do not assign heavy workload to disaster volunteers, the results of this study suggest that as a surplus of available volunteers’ increases, the overall satisfaction increases while the turnover intention decreases due to dissatisfaction with a non-essential workload as well as from group conflict. In contrast, when the number of volunteers is less than what is needed, disaster volunteers’ satisfaction and turnover intentions were not affected even if there is high group conflict due to the positive effect of the workload that offsets the negative impact of the group conflict

Using narrative ideas to learn about mental illness in the classroom

Narrative ideas provide an interesting basis for teaching health practitioners. The specific notions discussed here have been referred to as reflecting teams and as outsider-witness practices. These practices involve offering feedback in non-evaluative ways as a means of exploring new possibilities and perspectives for participants. The emphasis is on the acknowledgement and resonance that occurs when a story is told and witnessed through connecting the story with the lives of the listeners. This paper offers an example of classroom work linked to studentsʼ assignments that was designed to help general nursing students learn about people with mental health problems. The assignments focused on the media representations of people with a mental disorder. The notions of reflecting teams and outsider-witnesses were used in a classroom exercise to witness the stories described in the assignments. The primary aim was to help students to develop richer understandings of people with mental health problems that might lead to more caring ways of practising nursing. The reflecting team process helped students to go beyond the media stereotypes of mental illness and the people who suffer from it. It promoted new understandings of mental health consumers. The exercise enabled students to learn more about stigma and its undermining influence on peoplesʼ lives, to pay close attention to their own language use, and to commit to an enhanced advocate role for vulnerable groups in their care in future practice settings