Accounting Accreditation: Value Added Or Waste Of Resources?

In a forthcoming paper Everard, Edmonds, and St. Pierre (2014) question whether the AACSB has achieved its mission of recognizing excellence in business education and whether it has shown continuous improvement in its efforts since the change to a mission driven focus. In this paper, the authors expand on this topic and address the value of accounting accreditation from the perspective of the market it serves, whether accounting accreditation has diminished in value because of the quality of the programs being accredited, and whether accounting accreditation is an idea that has run its course. We conclude that since the move to a mission driven focus, the AACSB has diminished its brand, has failed in its ability todifferentiate quality accounting programs in the higher education market, and has not met its objective of continuous improvement for the organization itself. Unless changes are made in the organization, itsvalue in the higher education marketplace will diminish over time and the brand could become irrelevant

Developing Teacher Leaders in Math and Science: Content Coaches Mentoring Teacher Leaders

The AMSTI (Alabama Math Science Technology Initiative)-USA Fellows program, a collaboration between a university College of Education and Arts & Sciences, State Department of Education, and local school district, was created to develop Teacher Leaders in AMSTI Mathematics and Science. The specific focus of this research was to examine the mentoring provided to the Teacher Leaders Fellows, and to determine if the professional development provided to the teacher leaders helped them develop mentoring skills to mentor and coach the AMSTI teachers with whom they worked. At the completion of their Fellowship, these AMSTI-USA Fellows returned to become teacher leaders at their home schools, charged with mentoring and coaching teachers in the AMSTI curriculum. The objectives of this research was to evaluate the effectiveness of: (1) mentoring the newly identified teacher leader Fellows into the role of teacher leader; and, (2) developing the mentoring and coaching skills in both the affective components and content aspects of the selected AMSTI Teacher Leader Fellows

Measuring the Success of Female Faculty in the IS Research Arena: An Empirical Investigation

The gender disparity in the US IT workforce is well documented (Brandel, 2014). This research-in-progress looks at (1) whether a concomitant gender gap exists in MIS university faculty members and (2) whether women and men university faculty members are equally successful in the profession, as measured by their publishing activity in the leading MIS journals. In order to investigate these issues, we collect data on (1) female representation in the IS discipline and (2) female representation in the leading IS journals. We are not only interested in how many women are in the MIS academic field, but how successful they are from a publication perspective. Just as having a diverse workforce and female-friendly policies is touted as good business for industry, having a diverse workforce is good for academia. Having more women faculty members increases the attractiveness of the profession for other women, especially if they are deemed successful

Preparing Elementary Educators to Teach Reading: An Exploratory Study of Preservice Teachers’ Evolving Sense of Reading Efficacy

Teacher educators must acknowledge and consider the nature of reading efficacy and its developmental progression if they are to design and deliver programs that produce individuals moving toward being competent and confident teachers of reading. Ninety-two candidates in varying stages of a K-6 teacher education program responded to the Reading Teachers’ Sense of Efficacy Scale. Data analysis using ANOVA and Fisher’s LSD post-hoc comparisons revealed student teachers (Tier 4) had higher overall perceived reading teacher efficacy (M = 131.96, SD = 12.45) than those in the first semester methodology courses (Tier 2) (M = 117.68, SD = 16.43), p = .001 and the second semester of methodology courses (Tier 3) (M = 121.52, SD = 13.61), p = .005. Additionally, Tier 4 preservice teachers had significantly higher perceived reading teacher efficacy than those in both Tier 2 and Tier 3 for 9 individual scale items (p\u3c .05). The perceived increased efficacy is largely credited to positive mastery experiences during the final internship semester

Contributors to the High-impact IS Journals (1977-2014): An Aid for Setting Research Standards

Interest in the rankings of contributors to academic literature is evidenced by the numerous publications across most business and economic disciplines. This study presents the most prolific authors 1) over the entire history of the 11 high-impact IS journals and 2) over the ten most recent years for each of the journals. We include the number of authors who have published in the journals but who may not be considered prolific based on our classification; this data is important and especially critical for IS departments that set research standards. Identifying and ranking authors in the IS discipline is interesting for several reasons. While some may be curious to see how they perform compared to these researchers, a more beneficial application of the findings in this paper pertains to establishing realistic promotion and tenure standards. Although 11,204 authors published in the 11 high-impact journals, 7,734 (69%) of those authors published only once in these journals in the 1977-2014 period. This fact is essential for any IS department that sets promotion and tenure guidelines. Using our findings will help colleges and IS departments establish reasonable and attainable promotion and tenure standards based on the actual performance of others in the discipline

Policy Feedback

This element explores early and more recent contributions of the policy feedback literature to clarify the meaning of this concept and its contribution to both political science and policy studies. This element also discusses the practical implications of policy feedback research through a discussion of its potential impact on policy design

Ecological intensification with soil health practices demonstrates positive impacts on multiple soil properties: A large-scale farmer-led experiment

Improving soil health is critical to reversing trends of soil degradation and is of increasing interest to a range of stakeholders including policymakers, agricultural industry leaders, food companies, and farmers. Crop and soil management practices focused on ecological functions can be effective in restoring fundamental biological, chemical and physical soil properties. The call for ecological intensification of agricultural systems has the potential to improve soil health and input-use efficiency. In this study, we developed a framework to classify spatial and temporal ecological intensification with soil health practices: tillage, crop rotation, cover crop, organic amendment, and crop-livestock integration. We applied this framework in a statewide soil health project featuring collaboratively designed on-farm research. We found that ecological intensification affected all properties commonly used in soil health assessments, but the sensitivity of different practices to impact changes varied among the soil physical, chemical and biological properties. The use of cover crops had the greatest impact on driving changes in soil properties, in particular those closely related to organic matter and carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) dynamics. Soil-test biological activity and its association with soil-test predicted N release in cropping systems intensified with cover crop use was found to reduce predicted nutrient fertility needs substantially compared to less intensified systems. Evaluating the potential of existing agricultural systems to undergo ecological intensification at a farm scale provides insights about management options to enhance soil health, particularly in regards to nutrient cycling, biological activity, and input-use efficiency

The Beliefs and Practices of Second Grade Teachers Who Implement Independent Reading and Its Effect on Students’ Reading Achievement and Reading Volume

The purpose of the present study was to explore the beliefs and practices of teachers who implement independent reading in their classrooms. Results showed that teachers who implemented independent reading believed in the importance of both the quantity and quality of student reading. The teachers’ practices of independent reading showed students selecting books that were “just-right” for them to read, social experiences around reading, guided practice through reading conferences with the teacher, and setting a purpose for reading through response activities. A nonexperimental comparative design was used to examine the effects of independent reading on reading volume and reading achievement. Results indicated that there were no statistically significant effects between the independent reading group and the no independent reading group for reading achievement or reading volume. Additionally, there was no statistically significant difference in growth of reading achievement between higher and lower readers in the independent reading group