RESEARCH STUDIES IN HIGHER EDUCATION: EDUCATING MULTICULTURAL COLLEGE STUDENTS-Ch 8

Book Chapte

Virtual Reality Gaming: Reducing Student Anxiety and Increasing Skill Mastery

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the level of performance anxiety student’s experience when participating in various learning modalities, and investigate student modality preference in practicing nursing skills. Two survey questions were included as part of a post-test survey in which nursing students at were asked to 1) use a Likert scale to rate their level of performance anxiety when participating in each of the four learning modalities used at the School of Nursing and 2) to indicate their preferred modality to use when practicing nursing skills. Preliminary results indicate performance anxiety is highest in simulation scenarios and lowest in the Virtual Reality environment. No practice modality preference has emerged. The anxiety student’s experience in simulation has been studied and the outcomes indicate that at certain levels, heightened anxiety negatively effects the learning experience. The Virtual Reality modality allows students the opportunity to gain confidence in performing a skill prior to practice in simulation or the clinical environment. It may also provide a platform to instill skill mastery and improve skill retention. Using VR to enhance learning and increase skill retention are two areas that should be investigated further based on the preliminary findings

Justiciable Generalized Grievances

The Supreme Court\u27s prevailing test for Article III standing - injury-in-fact, causation, and redressability - generally restricts suits to remedy injuries affecting broad segments of the public in substantially equal measure. In Massachusetts v. EPA, the Supreme Court appeared to depart from this proposition in holding that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has standing to sue the EPA to prompt it to slow global warming, a harm that affects everyone on Earth. The dissenting Justices assailed the majority for finding justiciable a so-called “generalized grievance” in contravention of prior standing precedent that is based on the notion that if parties seek to redress public harms, they must do so via the political branches and not the courts. Scholarly reflections on the case have addressed the Court\u27s idiosyncratic anointing of Massachusetts with something it called “special solicitude” in standing analysis, occasioned by its status as a state. In this Article, I discuss a more subtle aspect of Massachusetts: how the majority wrestled with the controversial injury-in-fact test, which is ill-suited for analyzing standing in public law disputes. Implicit in Massachusetts is a paradigm for resolving statutory enforcement cases brought to vindicate public harms indistinguishably suffered by the masses. It is animated by three characteristics: (1) the plaintiff\u27s invocation of “procedural rights” established by statute; (2) a “concrete” and “personal” stake that distinguishes the plaintiff from the pure ideologue; and (3) a congressional authorization of the suit. I suggest that the Court should draw upon this reconceptualized framework in future statutory enforcement cases, as it offers several advantages for suits brought to remedy commonly-shared public harms. First, it is more attuned to the realities of public law litigation. Next, it is based on premises that a majority of the current Justices - including an architect of modern injury-in-fact, Justice Scalia - already embrace. Moreover, it cabins the muddied generalized grievance bar to its original purpose - preventing citizens from suing on purely ideological grounds. Furthermore, it gives appropriate weight to congressional judgments about required procedure. Finally, it enforces formal separation of the executive and judicial branches while recognizing that the separation of powers operates to ensure executive accountability through judicial review

Data Gathering in Cognitive Radio Ad Hoc and Sensor Wireless Networks

Data gathering is a network communication task in which all of the network’s nodes send their individual messages to a distinguished sink node. In cognitive radio ad hoc and sensor wireless networks (CR-AHSWNs), unlicensed secondary users (SUs) opportunistically use channels when the licensed primary users are not using them. Therefore, the channels available to each SU vary with time and location, which makes the development of data gathering algorithms for CR-AHSWNs challenging. In this thesis, a data gathering protocol for CR-AHSWNs is proposed. The protocol consists of several distributed SU action selection and channel selection algorithms. An algorithm that can reduce the data gathering delay by selecting message forwarding SUs is also proposed. Finally, an algorithm that calculates an estimate of the successful data gathering ratio (SDGR) is proposed. The SDGR is affected by each SU’s channel availability and network collisions, and the exact value is extremely challenging to calculate

Faring better or worse: A quantitative analysis of student success outcomes of the Ronald E. McNair Postbaccalaureate Achievement Program at Eastern Michigan University

Intergenerational poverty is a problem of immense concern within the African American community, where approximately 32% of children under the age of 18 reside in impoverished conditions. Although acquisition of a college degree is the sole determining factor most influential for social mobility of families in the lowest income bracket, only 10.13% of total degrees conferred in 2015-2016 were to African American students. Additionally, being first-generation and low-income, stressors are intensified and perpetuate cessation of enrollment in postsecondary studies. Utilizing a non-randomized sample, a causal comparative/quasi experimental analysis was conducted to evaluate whether African Americans, or students from low-income and first-generation families, had higher grade point averages, rates of retention, or degree attainment as members of the Eastern Michigan University Ronald E. McNair Postbaccalaureate Achievement Program compared to peers who lacked program affiliation. Data showed no statistically significant differences in GPA or persistence in students who fit the sample criteria. However, a significant difference in undergraduate degree attainment was demonstrated in members of the Eastern Michigan University Ronald E. McNair Postbaccalaureate Achievement Program

Public Laws and Private Lawmakers

The Obama Administration’s “Clean Power Plan” for addressing industrial carbon emissions is controversial as a matter of environmental policy. It also has important constitutional implications. The rule was initially crafted not by officers or employees of the Environmental Protection Agency, but by two private lawyers and a scientist with industry ties. Private parties operate extra-constitutionally, and no existing legal doctrine tethers constitutional scrutiny to the nature of the power delegated to them. The nondelegation doctrine applies to delegations by Congress—not to agencies’ subdelegations of legislative power to private parties. The other doctrinal lens for reviewing rulemaking by entities other than Congress—Chevron U.S.A. v. National Resources Defense Council, Inc. and its progeny—is equally blind to subdelegations of policymaking authority to parties that function beyond the boundaries of the Constitution. This Article takes up the issue of private rulemaking, and argues that its inescapable constitutional implications warrant a stronger nondelegation doctrine and a more nuanced approach to Chevron that emphasizes public accountability, legitimacy, transparency, and rational decision-making over notions of agency prerogative

Government by Contract and the Structural Constitution

The article presents information on the structural constitution of the U.S. It informs that modern federal government is outsourced to private contractors. It discusses charge of federal powers to private entities and put forwards an analysis on privatization from a standard structural constitution point. It discusses the decision in the case of Fund v. Public Co. Accounting Oversight Board. It states that the law governing independent agencies helps in analyzing the government outsourcing