Listening to Student Voices: A Critical Study of Homework

In a culture of meritocracy and an increasing emphasis on global competition, student learning has become more fully aligned with a belief in the value and effectiveness of homework. Amidst the incessant drive toward competition and an unrelenting push toward an increasing use of homework as commonplace educational practice, there also exist clarion calls to question, reform, and abolish this practice. From student stress to overarching challenges to the nature of education, there exist unexamined discourses that critically challenge current beliefs in the significance of homework practice in the United States. Through employing discussions of student voice and theoretical lenses of intrinsic motivation, social reproduction, and critical pedagogy, this study examined how homework practices impact high school students, by engaging directly with their perceptions. The purpose of this mixed methods study is to better understand how homework affects high school students, beyond measures of student achievement within the current context of education in the United States. The study was conducted in an all-female, Catholic, college preparatory high school, utilizing student survey and focus groups. Findings of the study are explored and discussed with respect to public policy implications related to the future development, assignment, and role of homework practices in the academic formation of high school students in this setting and beyond

UNDERSTANDING BURNOUT AND PROMOTING ENGAGEMENT AMONG ADJUNCT FACULTY IN COMMUNITY COLLEGES

This mixed methods study explored the phenomenon of job burnout among adjunct faculty at two suburban Illinois community colleges. The Maslach Burnout Inventory – Educators’ Survey (MBI-ES) was administered to adjuncts at both colleges to determine overall levels of burnout for the three dimensions of burnout – emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and lack of personal accomplishment. The results of the MBI-ES also allowed differences in burnout levels based on selected employment characteristics and teaching disciplines to be examined. Qualitative methods, specifically semi-structured interviews and document review, provided further insight into these areas. Qualitative methods were also used to investigate the risk factors for job burnout, strategies that prevent and address job burnout, and the role of adjunct unions in burnout prevention. Overall, adjunct faculty experienced mean burnout levels that were similar to other postsecondary faculty. Elevated levels of burnout were observed among the following adjunct groups: (a) adjuncts who held part-time teaching positions at multiple institutions, (b) new adjunct faculty, (c) adjuncts who taught in transfer disciplines, and (d) adjuncts who taught lower level courses. Additionally, adjuncts who aspired to earn a full-time faculty position experienced early engagement that appeared to evolve into burnout as their full-time prospects diminished. The challenges facing adjunct faculty are numerous and have been described in literature as relating primarily to compensation, resources, and involvement. Similar challenges, as well as others not identified in literature, were identified at the selected institutions. Several of these challenges corresponded to the organizational v risk factors for burnout that arise when a mismatch exists between the employee and the job environment (2008). Namely, mismatches related to the following areas were observed: (a) workload, (b) control, (c) reward, (d) community, and (e) fairness. Several strategies that either addressed or prevented the manifestation of job burnout were observed. Individual strategies employed by adjuncts tended to address existing feelings of burnout while institutional strategies helped to prevent burnout from arising. Adjunct unions also helped to support adjuncts and prevent burnout through contract provisions and by creating a sense of community. However, the effectiveness of adjunct unions was limited by strict eligibility requirements and inexperienced union leadership

Modeling physical controls on northern shrimp (Pandalus borealis) dispersal, retention and settlement success in the Gulf of Maine

Understanding the population dynamics of commercially harvested species is critical to fishery management. Coupled physical-biological models are powerful tools for exploring interactions among species and their environment. This study creates a coupled, individual-based model to explore interactions between northern shrimp in the Gulf of Maine and their physical environment to try to understand the variability in their population from year to year and to draw hypotheses regarding spawning grounds, larval dispersal and settlement success zones for further study. Model runs are performed using standardized winds to understand the general effects of variability in physical forcing on the population. Runs are then performed using daily wind data over twenty years to test the hypothesis that physical forcing is a first-order determinant of recruitment. No correlations are found, suggesting that sources of recruitment variability lie in biological influences on population dynamics. Strong hypotheses regarding controls on population dynamics are posed

The PUWP's preferences in the contemporary Polish novel, 1959-1985

The thesis seeks to account for the development of the Party's views of the contemporary novel and its expectations of the form after Socialist Realism (1949-1955). The course of development of Party requirements of the form is traced from 1959, when the Party announced its new operative ideology at the Third Congress, to its last major statement of demands at the Party Writers' Conference of February 1985. One of the salient features of the thesis is the attempt to reconstruct Party thinking on the novel through access to hitherto unknown materials for the period from the Party and Censorship Office archives. This enables the lack of specificity inherent in the Party's formulations after the demise of Socialist Realism to be countered, and a more definite account of the progression of Party thinking to be delineated. Chapter 1 defines, firstly, the administrative structures within which writers were required to operate - the Writers' Union, Ministry of Culture, the Central Committee's Cultural Department and, finally, the Censorship Office. Secondly, it considers the positive mechanisms devised by the state to encourage novel-writing on favoured topics, and thirdly, the aims of the Party's cultural programme. Chapter 2 provides a general cultural background of the period, describing the development of the term 'committed literature', which was most frequently used by writers and politicians in their deliberations on the nature and direction literature was to take. This development was influenced by the increasing restrictions which the authorities placed upon writers' freedom of interpretation. These concerned, above all, the problem of alienation in socialist society. Chapter 3-5 discuss six works in relation to the administrative structures and the major political issues of the period. In Chapter 3, the question of the Party's initial definition of the extent of freedoms is considered in relation to Roman Bratny's Szczes lwi, torturowani (1959) and Jerzy Putrament's Pasierbowie (1963)

Analyzing the effect of site quality on Tennessee reservoir fishing site selection using a random utility model

Random Utility Models (RUM) are an extensively used modeling structure in the field of recreational demand studies. They are particularly useful when recreationists may choose from a large number of alternative recreational sites. Anglers in Tennessee have a large number of reservoirs available for fishing, each of which varies in site quality and access costs. Using survey data, models of angler site selection are empirically estimated for the major reservoirs in Tennessee, and benefit measures for changes in site fishing quality are calculated. Because RUM models are sensitive to the set of included sites, two different regional modelling strategies were tested