Empowering Faculty through Assessment

This article explains how faculty and administrators at Lord Fairfax Community College have made assessment a vital practice across campus

Public Choice for Flood Defence

Why do we want to value the environment? Environmental assets provide a flow of goods and services over time which benefit mankind. Valuing these services contributes towards their protection and enhancement, however many of these benefits cannot be valued in traditional markets and as such rely on non-market valuation techniques. One of these is contingent valuation (CV) which directly asks respondents whether they are willing to pay for an improvement in the good or service. This thesis seeks to explore methodological issues associated with this method by undertaking a CV survey to elicit willingness to pay (WTP) for a new type of flood defence (managed realignment) on the Tay Estuary, Scotland. One challenge for survey designers is to provide high quality, readily understandable information to mitigate bias in WTP estimates. This thesis contributes to the information provision literature by examining whether prior knowledge or new information has a greater effect on the WTP estimate when controlling for respondent experience and familiarity with the good. A field experiment was designed to test for respondent’s prior knowledge; allow for varying levels of information to be presented to respondents and identify information acquisition for each respondent. Specifically tested was the notion that respondents who learn the most about the good during the survey process will have a more robust WTP estimate. Results were mixed: a causal relationship between information provision and learning was established with respondents in the higher treatment groups scoring higher in the second quiz. However, there was no relationship identified between prior knowledge, information provision and WTP. Personal motivations were the strongest predictors of WTP: those who were most concerned about flood risk and who lived closest to the proposed flood defence were willing to pay the most. A second issue in CV is consequentiality. Carson and Groves (2007) argue that for a survey to produce meaningful information about respondent’s preferences the respondent must view their responses as potentially influencing the supply of the public good. This thesis seeks add to this relatively new literature by exploring the observable factors which may influence respondents perceived consequentiality; specifically the effects of familiarity and information. Respondents were asked to state how confident they were that the results of the survey would be used by policy makers on a Likert scale ranging from “very unconfident” through to “very confident”. Results conformed to the Carson and Groves knife edge result: consequential respondents had significantly different WTP distributions compared to inconsequential and unsure respondents and were willing to pay significantly more towards the scheme. Consequential respondents also conformed the theoretical considerations of construct validity whilst inconsequential respondents did not. Respondents with more prior knowledge also appeared to be more likely to perceive the survey as consequential, although this was not consistent across all treatment groups. There is a concern that WTP and consequentiality are endogenous: respondents who want the policy to go ahead may be more likely to state the survey is consequential and state a high WTP in the hope these responses combined contribute to the policy maker’s decision. From a policy perspective the high level of support for the new scheme was encouraging and in contrast to previous findings on preferences for managed realignment. From a flood risk management perspective a “miss-match” between actual and perceived flood risk was highlighted, with many respondents stating they were not at risk from flooding when they in fact were. This is potentially concerning as respondents may not be taking adequate steps to protect their home from future flood risks. Overall it is recognised that values derived from the CV survey form one small part of the planning process and while informative, the decision for a scheme to take place should not be based on these values alone

Integrated curriculum in the elementary classroom

Integrated curriculum can be broadly defined as using a theme to connect standards and objectives from multiple subject areas in a meaningful way to create relevant, student-centered learning tasks that promote social growth and deep comprehension. This type of instruction can promote higher-order thinking skills, cooperative learning, motivate students to engage in their own learning, and many other intangibles . The purpose of this project was to create an integrated unit for a first-grade classroom. The outcome will be an actual unit that can be used as a guide for teachers. However, another purpose of the project was to grasp the concept of how to create an integrated unit to further develop more integrated units in the future

When Do (and Don’t) Normative Appeals Influence Sustainable Consumer Behaviors?

The authors explore how injunctive appeals (i.e., highlighting what others think one should do), descriptive appeals (i.e., highlighting what others are doing), and benefit appeals (i.e., highlighting the benefits of the action) can encourage consumers to engage in relatively unfamiliar sustainable behaviors such as “grasscycling” and composting. Across one field study and three laboratory studies, the authors demonstrate that the effectiveness of the appeal type depends on whether the individual or collective level of the self is activated. When the collective level of self is activated, injunctive and descriptive normative appeals are most effective, whereas benefit appeals are less effective in encouraging sustainable behaviors. When the individual level of self is activated, self-benefit and descriptive appeals are particularly effective. The positive effects of descriptive appeals for the individual self are related to the informational benefits that such appeals can provide. The authors propose a goal-compatibility mechanism for these results and find that a match of congruent goals leads to the most positive consumer responses. They conclude with a discussion of implications for consumers, marketers, and public policy makers

Communicating the library as a learning environment

Lack of commonly used vocabulary about informal learning environments hinders precise communication about what is observed, assessed, and understood about the relation of space to learning. This study empirically extends taxonomies of terms and phrases that describe such relationships through content analysis of descriptions of completed library projects, concluding that focus and collaboration are most prevalent terms and highlight how space affords learning.   Study results will benefit practitioners and researchers to specify designs to improve library spaces, advocate for the value the library environment offers educational experiences, evaluate return on investments in renovation and construction, and contribute research toward understanding the relationships between learning and space

Stress and Well-being at the Consumer-Employee Interface

Although stress has become a prominent research theme in consumer behavior and occupational health, to the authors knowledge there is only one review on the relationship between consumer behavior and stress (i.e., when internal and external factors exceed an individual’s resources and endangering the individual’s well-being) and this was published 10 years ago. Further, research on occupational stress has yet to be fully integrated into the consumer stress literature. In this chapter, the authors attempt to advance research on consumer stress by a drawing on a satisfaction mirror framework which outlines that consumers and employees influence each other through a “mirror” where they positively and cyclically influence each other in a service environment. The authors argue that consumers and employees may likewise mirror each other in a negative cycle of stress and well-being depletion. First, the authors describe how stress is viewed in consumer behavior and marketing. Second, the authors review evidence that consumption serves as a form of coping with stress. Third, the authors discuss the role of consumption as a stressor that may drive consumer stress. Finally, the authors introduce the satisfaction mirror model and outline the bi-directional influence on increased stress and well-being depletion at the consumer–employee interface in service encounters. The model introduced in this chapter serves as a framework for organizing findings related to stress and well-being in the fields of consumer behavior and occupational health. In addition, the model serves as a springboard for developing propositions for future research. Ultimately, the authors hope this chapter both updates and builds upon previous findings on stress and consumer behavior, as well as grounds future research on stress and well-being at the intersection of consumers and employees

How Co-Creation Increases Employee Corporate Social Responsibility and Organizational Engagement: The Moderating Role of Self-Construal

This research merges literature from organizational behavior and marketing to garner insight into how organizations can maximize the benefits of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) for enhanced CSR and organizational engagement of employees. Across two field experiments, the authors demonstrate that the effectiveness of employee co-creation activities in increasing employees’ positive CSR perceptions is moderated by self-construal (i.e., whether an individual views the self as relatively independent from or interdependent with others). In particular, the positive effect of co-creation on CSR perceptions emerges only for employees with a salient interdependent self-construal (either measured as an individual difference or experimentally manipulated). Moreover, the results demonstrate that increased positive CSR perceptions then predict increased CSR engagement and organizational engagement. The research thus highlights the need to consider self-construal when trying to utilize co-creation to predict CSR engagement and organizational engagement, via CSR perceptions

When Public Recognition for Charitable Giving Backfires: The Role of Independent Self-Construal

This research examines the effectiveness of public recognition in encouraging charitable giving, demonstrating that public recognition can sometimes decrease donations. While previous work has largely shown that making donations visible to others can motivate donors, the present research shows that the effectiveness of public recognition depends on whether potential donors are under an independent (i.e., separate from others) or interdependent (i.e., connected with others) self-construal. Across seven experimental studies, an independent self-construal decreases donation intentions and amounts when the donor will receive public recognition compared to when the donation will remain private. This effect is driven by the activation of an agentic motive, wherein independents are motivated to make decisions that are guided by their own goals and self-interests, rather than being influenced by the opinions and expectations of others. This research contributes to the understanding of the nuanced roles of both public recognition and self-construal in predicting donation behavior

A Framework for Considering Dissociative Identity Effects in Consumption

This chapter examines the mirror image of the identity association principle: dissociation. While the association principle posits that stimuli associated with a positively regarded identity receive more positive evaluations, the dissociation principle suggests that stimuli associated with negatively regarded identities will receive negative evaluations and be abandoned. The authors focus on the nature of dissociative reference groups or groups that the consumer is motivated to avoid association with, and present a framework outlining how dissociative influence can impact consumer behavior. They review the literature on dissociative influence and note that although dissociative reference groups often spur avoidance behaviors, they can sometimes induce approach behaviors. They then turn to a discussion of how dissociative associations can lead to polarizing reactions in real-world domains, such as politics. Finally, they draw on their theorizing to outline some suggested directions for future research in this regard