Anticipating Academic and Career Future among African Undergraduate Students in The United States: A Focus On Student Possible Selves

Steering one’s own course by mastering own destiny is one of the powerful theorems often used to motivate individuals’ power to elating their future. Academic and career preparedness among undergraduate students in the twenty-first century is strengthened by student possible selves. While the American educational culture upholds this concept in higher education institutions, ethnic marginalization may explain why African undergraduate students in the United States have limited individual choice and control. The purpose of this study was to investigate the degree of student possible selves among undergraduate students in the United States with attribution to their academic and career future. This study was undertaken using descriptive and multiple regression methods in the Spring Semester of 2007. The study involved undergraduate students registered in any of the semesters in the Spring semester, 2007 and the year 2006. They had to be African students with both parents having been born in Africa and have a willingness to participate in the study. Data was analyzed using the Statistical Product and Service Solutions (SPSS) Version 12.0. The found out that during the middle school years, students and teachers in the United States focused on performance goals and less on mastery goals than in other years, however, the case was not the same for African students enrolled in college. This study informs educators and policy makers about African undergraduates in USA whose minority status may affect their achievement in school and stereotypically may group them into one of the marked identities that elicit vulnerability to academic under-achievement. School admission administrators and officials need to be cognizant of the motivators and future beliefs of the students they admit. It would help in providing the support and counseling required as the students move along the academic and acculturation trajectory in the United States. Key words: Academic achievement, Career, Goal orientation, Possible selves, African undergraduate

Using the Health Belief Model to Study Health Perceptions of Kenyans in the United States

The need to study the African diaspora has never been greater According to Anderson 2018 in 2015 there were 2 1 million African immigrants living in the United States This research studies the Kenyan diaspora in the US It looks at health behavior perceptions and attitudes among men and women of Kenyan descent who live in three selected state Alabama Georgia and North Carolina Using a Health Belief Model HBM questionnaire the Kenyan immigrants were given questionnaires in meeting places The HBM model has four main constructs are perceptions of 1 susceptibility 2 severity seriousness 3 barriers 4 benefits Results indicated that most Kenyan immigrants viewed improved health as the major benefit from physical activity 37 5 followed by losing weight 23 2 then increasing physical condition 13 1 The social change implications of the study are that the Kenyan immigrant population need to be encouraged to exercise and eat healthily Results further showed that majority of the respondents 50 3 fail to exercise due to lack of enough time 13 8 due to lack of motivation while 10 2 due to inconvenience As far as cue to action is concerned 28 4 of the participants indicated not fitting comfortably into clothing as the greatest cue followed by 24 8 of the doctor s recommendation while 12 1 indicated availability of exercise program as a cue to action The results reveal that there were no significant gender differences in health perceptions of barriers to action p 0 564 0 05 of benefits to exercise p 0 604 0 05 no significant difference in perception of cue to action p 0 159 0 05 and risk susceptibility p 0 341 0 0

Gender Differences in Assessing the Impact of Inter-Parental Conflict on Students Academic Achievement Motivation in Ruiru Sub County Kenya

Research suggests children of different gender exposed to a similar environment of inter-parental conflict may have varying responses. While the impact of inter-parental conflict may be similarly damaging for both girls and boys, they may have different reactions to conflict and hostility between their parents. This necessitates the need to comprehensively understand why some children may be more vulnerable to the impact of inter-parental conflict than others. In this paper, the author seeks to establish the perception of who between the male and female students is mostly affected by inter-parental conflict in terms of academic achievement motivation. The study was guided by Fincham’s cognitive contextual framework theory and adopted a mixed method research design. A total of 281 students participated in the study. Purposeful sampling was used to select guidance and counseling teachers and parents of the students. Proportionate stratified sampling technique was used to select schools from the 13 public and 18 private schools in Ruiru sub-county as well as to select students from the chosen schools. Data was collected using four instruments: Children Perception of Inter-parental Conflict Questionnaire (CPIC) and Academic Motivation Survey (AMS) for Students, interview schedule for seven guidance and counseling teachers and focus group discussion for ten parents of the students. Data analysis was conducted both descriptively and using inferential statistics. In this, Pearson’s product moment correlation coefficient (r) was used to establish the relationship between inter-parental conflict and academic achievement motivation at 0.05 significance level. T-test was used to determine sex differences in inter-parental conflict and academic achievement motivation. The results were summarized in tables of frequency distribution and percentages. The results provided evidence that there was a significant gender difference with regard to inter-parental conflict and some domains of academic achievement motivation which were in favor of girls in both data sets. Keywords: Inter-parental conflict, gender differences, students, Ruiru sub-county, children perception, Academic achievement motivation.

SUPERVISION CHALLENGES AND DELAYS IN COMPLETION OF PHD PROGRAMMES IN PUBLIC AND PRIVATE UNIVERSITIES: EXPERIENCES OF SUPERVISORS AND GRADUATE STUDENTS IN SELECTED UNIVERSITIES IN NAIROBI, KENYA

In the year 2014, the Commission for University Education (CUE), gave a directive that only those with PhD qualifications will be eligible to teach in the Kenyan universities beyond 2018. This was due to the realisation that, majority of the teaching workforce in Universities in Kenya were holders of Masters’ Degrees in their respective disciplines. Majority of these lecturers, however, were already enrolled in PhD programmes with some having spent up to eight years, more than the expected period of three to four years. The long time it takes to complete PhD studies has psychological, social, and financial implications on the students. It also undermines human resource capacities of the universities in which they teach and should be a concern to all the stakeholders in higher education. One of the main issues often cited for this delay is the challenge of supervision experienced by PhD students as they work with their supervisors on their theses and dissertations. In addition to other issues, this matter is an ethical one demanding critical redress by ethical leadership. This study therefore sought to investigate the supervision challenges encountered by such students in public and private universities in Kenya and strategies that can be put in place to overcome such challenges. Using both primary and secondary data, the study sought to provide answers to three research questions: What are the supervision challenges faced by PhD students in public and private universities in Kenya? What contextual factors have contributed to such challenges? and, What strategies can be employed by students and supervisors to provide quality supervision in a timely manner? The mixed methods design was used to address these research questions drawn from both private and public universities in Kenya after which the collected data was analysed through SPSS presented in both descriptive and regression forms.  Article visualizations