Fostering Creative Thinking and Reflexive Evaluation in Searching: Instructional Scaffolding and the Zone of Proximal Development in Information Literacy Acquisition

Searching for information, which is not as easy as many students believe, requires creativity, formative evaluation, and persistence. Cultivating proficient and expert searches requires more than the vicarious and enactive experiences described by Bandura1 that are frequently employed in traditional library instruction: students need to be supported and coached in working in their Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), which stimulates learning.

Leveraging Visual Literacy to Engage and Orient First-Year College Students in the Library

Too often incoming students leave library orientation sessions feeling overwhelmed and overstressed, which results in the library becoming one more intimidating obstacle to them. However, this does not need to be the case. Visual literacy and visual culture can be leveraged to engage students and improve library orientation sessions

Financial Aid and Students' College Decisions: Evidence from the District of Columbia's Tuition Assistance Grant Program

The District of Columbia's Tuition Assistance Grant Program (DCTAG), instituted in 1999, allows DC residents to attend public colleges and universities throughout the country at considerably lower in-state tuition rates. We use the sharp decline in the price of public colleges and universities faced by residents of the District of Columbia under DCTAG to estimate the effects of price on students' college application and enrollment decisions. Using a sample of students from nearby large cities as a control group, we find that the number and share of DC residents applying to four-year colleges increased substantially under the program, and students were considerably more likely to apply to colleges that were eligible for the subsidy. Freshmen enrollments of DC residents also increased substantially at eligible institutions, although the effect on overall freshmen enrollments of DC residents was fairly modest, suggesting that in its first year the subsidy had more of an impact on where students chose to attend than on whether they chose to attend college at all.

Rethinking Information Literacy Assessment: Relevance, Reliability, and Validity of Constructs and Measures

Information literacy assessment has traditionally approached student learning as the acquisition of declarative knowledge, which can be measured with easily-graded true/false and multiple-choice questions. Although such measures may prove highly reliable in test-retest situations, they are not valid measures of knowledge or learning, because they fail to test procedural and conditional knowledge, both of which are essential for students to reach the higher levels of Bloom’s taxonomy. This omission can partially explain the disconnect between scores on tests of information literacy and students’ continued poor performance on research assignments. Furthermore, information literacy assessment has failed to address the social and emotional components of learning, which are critical for successful acquisition and application of information literacy skills. Self-efficacy, motivation, attitude, resilience, personality, and numerous other constructs impact students’ learning in and out of the classroom, and co-curricular activities are the ideal time for instructors to introduce their assessment. Students and instructors both have defined expectations for classroom activities and assessment, but the introduction of new structures and measures is natural in a new context. Broadening the focus of assessment to include social and emotional learning, as well as incorporating different types of knowledge, will result in the use of more relevant and valid measures, a better understanding of information literacy acquisition, and Librarians creating more engaging and effective instruction

Innovations for Vulnerable Populations in Massachusetts

This is the moderator\u27s introductory presentation for the mini-symposium entitled Innovations for Vulnerable Populations in Massachusetts, in which she places the session presentations in the context of an ongoing collaboration between Commonwealth Medicine, a division of the University of Massachusetts Medical School, and MassHealth

Impact of Preschool Education on Reading Achievement of Kindergarten Through Fifth Grade Students

This study examines the impact of various types of preschool care and education on the reading achievement of children, kindergarten through fifth grade, who participated in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Class of 1998-99 (ECLS-K). The participants in this study are located throughout the United States of America. These students attend public and private schools. The data for this study were provided by the National Center of Education Statistics (NCES), a division of the U.S. Department of Education. The researcher utilized ECLS-K\u27s Public Use Data File and Electronic Codebook to create an SPSS syntax file in order to determine if there is a difference in the longitudinal reading achievement of students from Kindergarten through the Fifth Grade and the cohort reading achievement of students in Kindergarten, First Grade, Third Grade, and Fifth Grade based on their preschool educational experience. Recommendations are provided for policymakers, teacher education programs, early childhood professionals, administrators, and K-12 public school teachers. A one way analysis of variance was conducted and indicated that the effect of preschool experience on the longitudinal reading achievement of students Kindergarten through the Fifth Grade was significant, F(4, 2528) = 46.42, p\u3c.001. A one way analysis of variance was also conducted to test hypothesis 2 and indicated that the effect of preschool experience on the cohort reading achievement of students in Kindergarten, F(4, 14291) = 90.6, First Grade, F(4, 13919) = 51.72, Third Grade, F(4, 11772) = 6.35, and Fifth Grade, F(4, 9367) = .89 was significant. Suggestions for future studies are presented as well

Occupational and Educational Aspirations of Black and White Male High School Students in a North Mississippi County

[No abstract provided.

Promoting Ecotourism to Millennials Through Social Media

This paper explores how coastal ecotourism marketers can utilize social media to effectively market to millennials. Coastal Tourism is one of four types of ecotourism identified by Honey and Krantz (2007) in their study Global Trends in Coastal Tourism sponsored by the World Wildlife Fund. An online survey of university students from the millennial generation was utilized. Findings indicate that millennials are interested in ecotourism and gather information about it from friends and social media. They check their accounts several times a day and usually from their smartphones. They would choose an ecotourism destination if money were not an issue. They believe it is a good cause and plan to visit an ecotourism destination within the next year. Millennials who are involved in ecotourism decisions and use social media to gather information also intend to visit an ecotourism destination. There is a need to build the literature base as few studies about social media and ecotourism exist. This study is exploratory but does provide a foundation for further research. Coastal ecotourism marketers should utilize a multi-platform approach; put out positive reviews via social media; consider budget-friendly options; and focus on the natural environment and animal conservation efforts. This study extends the literature by bringing together social media marketing, millennials, and ecotourism

Integrated tools for control-system analysis

The basic functions embedded within a user friendly software package (MATRIXx) are used to provide a high level systems approach to the analysis of linear control systems. Various control system analysis configurations are assembled automatically to minimize the amount of work by the user. Interactive decision making is incorporated via menu options and at selected points, such as in the plotting section, by inputting data. There are five evaluations such as the singular value robustness test, singular value loop transfer frequency response, Bode frequency response, steady-state covariance analysis, and closed-loop eigenvalues. Another section describes time response simulations. A time response for random white noise disturbance is available. The configurations and key equations used for each type of analysis, the restrictions that apply, the type of data required, and an example problem are described. One approach for integrating the design and analysis tools is also presented