Linking academic emotions and student engagement: mature-aged distance students’ transition to university

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Journal of Further and Higher Education on 2013, available online: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0309877X.2014.895305Research into both student engagement and student emotions is increasing, with widespread agreement that both are critical determinants of student success in higher education. Less researched are the complex, reciprocal relationships between these important influences. Two theoretical frameworks inform this paper: Pekrun’s taxonomy of academic emotions and Kahu’s conceptual framework of student engagement. The prospective qualitative design aims to allow a rich understanding of the fluctuating and diverse emotions that students experience during the transition to university and to explore the relationships between academic emotions and student engagement. The study follows 19 mature-aged (aged 24 and over) distance students throughout their first semester at university, using video diaries to collect data on their emotional experiences and their engagement with their study. Pre and post-semester interviews were also conducted. Findings highlight that different emotions have different links to engagement: as important elements in emotional engagement, as inhibitors of engagement and as outcomes that reciprocally influence engagement. There are two key conclusions. First, student emotions are the point of intersection between the university factors such as course design and student variables such as motivation and background. Second, the flow of influence between emotions, engagement, and learning is reciprocal and complex and can spiral upwards towards ideal engagement or downwards towards disengagement and withdrawal.Publishe

The engagement of mature distance students

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Higher Education Research and Development in 2013, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/07294360.2013.777036.Publishe

Space and time to engage: Mature-aged distance students learn to fit study into their lives

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in International Journal of Lifelong Education on 2014, available online: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02601370.2014.884177Student engagement, a student’s emotional, behavioural and cognitive connection to their study, is widely recognized as important for student achievement. Influenced by a wide range of personal, structural and sociocultural factors, engagement is both unique and subjective. One important structural factor shown in past research to be a barrier for distance students is access to quality space and time. This qualitative study followed 19 mature-aged distance students and their families, exploring how they learned to manage their space and time throughout their first semester at university. Institutions often claim that distance study and the increased use of technology overcomes barriers of space and time; however, the findings from this study suggest it merely changes the nature of those barriers. The ideal space and time for these students was individual and lay at the intersection of three, sometimes competing, demands: study, self and family. A critical influence on success is family support, as is access to financial resources. Learning what constitutes ideal space and time for engagement is an important part of the transition to university. The institution has a vital role to play in aiding this process by ensuring flexibility of course design is maintained, providing more flexible advice and targeting support at this important issue.falsePublishe

Sphere forming method and apparatus

A system is provided for forming small accurately spherical objects. Preformed largely spherical objects are supported at the opening of a conduit on the update of hot gas emitted from the opening, so the object is in a molten state. The conduit is suddenly jerked away at a downward incline, to allow the molten object to drop in free fall, so that surface tension forms a precise sphere. The conduit portion that has the opening, lies in a moderate vacuum chamber, and the falling sphere passes through the chamber and through a briefly opened valve into a tall drop tower that contains a lower pressure, to allow the sphere to cool without deformation caused by falling through air

The Final Fate of Binary Neutron Stars: What Happens After the Merger?

The merger of two neutron stars usually produces a remnant with a mass significantly above the single (nonrotating) neutron star maximum mass. In some cases, the remnant will be stabilized against collapse by rapid, differential rotation. MHD-driven angular momentum transport eventually leads to the collapse of the remnant's core, resulting in a black hole surrounded by a massive accretion torus. Here we present simulations of this process. The plausibility of generating short duration gamma ray bursts through this scenario is discussed.Comment: 3 pages. To appear in the Proceedings of the Eleventh Marcel Grossmann Meeting, Berlin, Germany, 23-29 July 2006, World Scientific, Singapore (2007