Micro-Level Determinants of Lecture Attendance and Additional Study-Hours

This paper uses novel measures of individual differences that produce new insights about student inputs into the (higher) education production function. The inputs examined are lecture attendance and additional study-hours. The data were collected through a web-survey that the authors designed. The analysis includes the following measures: willingness to take risks, consideration of future consequences and non-cognitive ability traits. Besides age, gender and year of study, the main determinants of lecture attendance and additional study-hours are attitude to risk, future-orientation and conscientiousness. In addition, future-orientation, and in particular conscientiousness, determine lecture attendance to a greater extent than they determine additional study. Finally, we show that family income and financial transfers (from both parents and the state) do not determine any educational input. This study suggests that non-cognitive abilities may be more important than financial constraints in the determination of inputs related to educational production functions.higher education, education inputs, lecture attendance, hours of study, future-orientation, attitude to risk, non-cognitive ability, conscientiousness

Micro-Level Determinants of Lecture Attendance and Additional Study-Hours

This paper uses novel measures of individual differences that produce new insights about student inputs into the (higher) education production function. The inputs examined are lecture attendance and additional study-hours. The data were collected through a websurvey that the authors designed. The analysis includes novel measures of individual di_erences including willingness to take risks, consideration of future consequences and non-cognitive ability traits. Besides age, gender and year of study, the main determinants of lecture attendance and additional study-hours are attitude to risk, future-orientation and conscientiousness. In addition, future-orientation, and in particular conscientiousness, determine lecture attendance to a greater extent than they determine additional study. Finally, we show that family income and _financial transfers (from both parents and the state) do not determine any educational input. This study suggests that non-cognitive abilities may be more important than financial constraints in the determination of inputs related to educational production functions.Socio-Economic Status, Education, Inequality, Discrimination

You Have the Right to Remain Uneducated: The Role of Lobbying in Subverting Anti-Racist Curricula

This research paper seeks to explore the relationship between professional political actors and the subject of racism in primary education curricula, specifically in areas with prominent anti-CRT movements. Synthesizing these ideas together, the fully formed research question guiding the development of this paper reads as follows: how does the lobbying industry impact the development of primary education curricula in the United States on the subjects of race and racism, specifically in reference to anti-CRT activism? The extant literature on topics of racism, the institution of lobbying, and primary education in America, led to the development of the following thesis and response to the research question: lobbying, as a social institution, will advance the interests of systemic white supremacy by advocating for CRT bans, and thus curricula that maintain the epistemology of ignorance. Other scholars have proposed competing answers to this same question, which the literature review discusses and rebukes. These alternative answers come largely from legal and political science scholars who understand the outcomes of lobbying at large, not just upon this particular policy issue, as the consequence of pluralistic competition in a liberal democracy

The Habilitation Centre Ideal: Carceral Contradictions and Alternatives to Prison in Aotearoa New Zealand

This article examines the potential role of ‘habilitation centres’ in the Labour government’s attempts to reduce the prison population, starting with the recent recommendations of an expert panel who called for the ‘gradual replacement of most prisons with community-based habilitation centres’. I trace this idea to the Roper report in the 1980s, showing how its emergence in Aotearoa New Zealand was shaped by problematic models of community corrections developed in the United States, with the habilitation centre articulated as a political compromise at a time of neoliberalisation and growing calls for Māori self-determination in criminal justice. Drawing on insights from Foucault and the broader field of carceral studies—though leaving the theory largely in the background—I spotlight the contradictions of the habilitation centre and other prison alternatives that rely on creating new sites of carceral confinement in the community. The analysis points to the dangers of a national network of habilitation centres being developed to extend, rather than replace, the existing system of hyper-incarceration

Micro-Level Determinants of Lecture Attendance and Additional Study-Hours

This paper uses novel measures of individual differences that produce new insights about student inputs into the (higher) education production function. The inputs examined are lecture attendance and additional study-hours. The data were collected through a web-survey that the authors designed. The analysis includes novel measures of individual differences including willingness to take risks, consideration of future consequences and non-cognitive ability traits. Besides age, gender and year of study, the main determinants of lecture attendance and additional study-hours are attitude to risk, future-orientation and conscientiousness. In addition, future-orientation, and in particular conscientiousness, determine lecture attendance to a greater extent than they determine additional study. Finally, we show that family income and financial transfers (from both parents and the state) do not determine any educational input. This study suggests that non-cognitive abilities may be more important than financial constraints in the determination of inputs related to educational production functions.higher education, education inputs, lecture attendance, hours of study, future-orientation, attitude to risk, non-cognitive ability, conscientiousness

A computerised data handling procedure for defect detection and analysis for large area substrates manufactured by roll-to-roll process

The development of optical on-line/in-process surface inspection and characterisation systems for flexible roll to roll (R2R) thin film barriers used for photo-voltaic (PV) modules is a core research goal for the EU funded NanoMend project. Micro and nano scale defects in the ALD (atomic layer deposition) Al2O3 barrier coating produced by R2R techniques can affect the PV module efficiency and lifespan. The presence of defects has been shown to have a clear correlation with the water-vapour-transmission-rate (WVTR). Hence, in order to improve the PV cell performance and lifespan the barrier film layer must prevent water vapour ingress. One of the main challenges for the application of in process metrology is how to assess large and multiple measurement data sets obtained from an in process optical instrument. Measuring the surface topography over large area substrates (approximately 500 mm substrate width) with a limited field-of-view (FOV) of the optical instrument will produce hundreds/thousands of measurement files. Assessing each file individually to find and analyse defects manually is time consuming and impractical. This paper reports the basis of a computerised solution to assess these files by monitoring and extracting areal surface topography parameters. Comparing parameter values to an experimentally determined threshold value, obtained from extensive lab-based measurement of Al2O3 ALD coated films, can indicate the existence of the defects within a given FOV. This process can be repeated automatically for chosen parameters and the existence of defects can be indicated for the entire set of measurement files spontaneously without interaction from the inspector. A running defect log and defect statistics associated with the captured set of data files can be generated. This paper outlines the implementation of the auto-defect logging using advanced areal parameters, and its application in a proof of concept system at the Center for Process Innovation (UK) is discussed