21 research outputs found
Multicultural Considerations for Building Learning Communities
Educational policies call for inclusion and attention to cultural differences in our schools. Administrators, classroom educators, counselors, and other support staff attempt to attend to students through a cooperative effort of connecting with the community beyond the school building, as well as the families represented within it. As Christians, there is a higher calling to truly embrace those often underserved in our learning communities. This paper will address multicultural issues important for United States and United Kingdom school system staff to be mindful of when focusing on students and their families
College Students’ Academic Achievement: Exploring the Role of Hope and Academic Self-Efficacy
In the present study, the relationships among trait hope, academic self-efficacy, and academic achievement (self-reported GPA) were examined among college students. Demographic differences were analyzed based on college-going status, ethnicity, and gender. First-generation college-going students (FGCS) reported significantly lower levels of hope, academic self-efficacy, and academic achievement when compared to non-FGCS. Male students reported significantly lower academic self-efficacy compared to female students. There was no statistically significant difference between non-White and White students. Overall, academic self-efficacy was a stronger predictor of achievement than hope. Between the two subscales of trait hope, agency was more strongly correlated with academic achievement than pathways. Furthermore, a mediation analysis indicated that academic self-efficacy fully accounted for the relationship between agency and academic achievement, which suggests that perceived capacity and agency to perform tasks in a specific domain may be more strongly associated with academic achievement than a general sense of hope and motivation
Widespread shifts in body size within populations and assemblages
Biotic responses to global change include directional shifts in organismal traits. Body size, an integrative trait that determines demographic rates and ecosystem functions, is thought to be shrinking in the Anthropocene. Here, we assessed the prevalence of body size change in six taxon groups across 5025 assemblage time series spanning 1960 to 2020. Using the Price equation to partition this change into within-species body size versus compositional changes, we detected prevailing decreases in body size through time driven primarily by fish, with more variable patterns in other taxa. We found that change in assemblage composition contributes more to body size changes than within-species trends, but both components show substantial variation in magnitude and direction. The biomass of assemblages remains quite stable as decreases in body size trade off with increases in abundance