Understanding personal factors that contribute to university student satisfaction with life is important in order to determine how we can better prepare students for the transition to post-secondary education and support them during this transition. This study examined predictors of university student satisfaction with life, academic self-efficacy, and self-reported academic achievement
in their first year of university. First-year students (n = 66) completed selfreport measures of academic achievement, university well-being, satisfaction with life, personality, and mental health. A linear regression analysis approach was applied to the data. Results indicated that academic satisfaction and school connectedness predicted satisfaction with life but that academic
self-efficacy and college gratitude did not, conscientiousness predicted academic self-efficacy, college well-being predicted self-reported achievement, and anxiety predicted achievement but depression did not. This study highlights the importance of understanding the personal factors that influence well-being and achievement during the transition to university.
This chapter examines how the three most common types of engagement found among adolescents attending high-performing high schools relate to indicators of mental and physical health.
Academe has plenty of its own clichés, but one that we’ve eagerly adopted from the business world is "thinking outside the box." You’ll see that phrase again and again in administrative-job postings and in applicants’ cover letters. But what does it really mean in higher education?
More important, however good you are at thinking outside the box, is it possible to act on your outside-the-box ideas once you’re on the job as a chair, dean, provost, or president?
This month the Admin 101 series on-campus leadership explores some of the reasons why leaders encounter resistance in carrying out unconventional proposals, and what you need to know before you jump outside the box.
Student ratings of teaching have been used, studied, and debated for almost a century. This article examines student ratings of teaching from a statistical perspective. The common practice of relying on averages of student teaching evaluation scores as the primary measure of teaching effectiveness for promotion and tenure decisions should be abandoned for substantive and statistical reasons: There is strong evidence that student responses to questions of “effectiveness” do not measure teaching effectiveness. Response rates and response variability matter. And comparing averages of categorical responses, even if the categories are represented by numbers, makes little sense. Student ratings of teaching are valuable when they ask the right questions, report response rates and score distributions, and are balanced by a variety of other sources and methods to evaluate teaching.
One of the advantages of academic-occupational integration is that it provides an opportunity to teach reading and writing skills in
the context of the workplace applications, permitting literacy skills and content knowledge to develop simultaneously. This
approach, a form of contextualized instruction (Mikulecky, 1998) is distinctly different from traditional approaches which see
literacy skills as a prerequisite to learning content (Sticht, 1995). The purpose of this segment is to provide descriptions of a variety of ways in which instructors in community colleges are contextualizing literacy instruction in occupational content. The
instructional activities are discussed in Perin (2000a).
The overarching message of this report is that equality does not happen by accident.
The research reviewed suggests that education policy makers should ensure that gender equality is a
real rather than a rhetorical priority and that change is substantively resourced in teacher
education and in school practices.
The publication of this report is part of our ongoing commitment to promoting gender equality in European schools and societies. A complementary report on gender and educational attainment will be published by Eurydice in November 2009. Also in November, a conference on gender and educational attainment organised by the Swedish Presidency of the European Union will bring together many of the key actors with the aim to providing an improved basis for further European policy
cooperation in this field.
What happens when a high-school student from a low-income family wants to attend a private college 100 miles away, but has a parent whispering in her ear to look closer to home? The "Survey of Admitted Students: Targeting Yield Strategies," may provide some answers, as well as more questions.
The report, produced by Eduventures, a consulting company, and written by Kim Reid, a principal analyst there, distilled insights from more than 100,000 high-school students nationwide.
Background: Low community college completion rates are an area of concern for policymakers and practitioners. Although many students require developmental education upon entry, research suggests that even students who are deemed “college-ready” by virtue of their placement test scores or completion of developmental coursework may not earn a credential, suggesting that college readiness encompasses more than academic skill.
Michael Skolnik
Canadian higher education has in the past few years succumbed to a mood of despair and defensiveness. Until just a few years ago, it was characterized by a confident, forward-looking energy, secure in the notion that it was the pre eminent engine of national development. Since then, we have seen our relative salaries decline; our plant,
equipment, and libraries erode; our jobs threatened; and the value of our contribution to Canadian society severely questioned. A number of explanations could be given for this dramatic reversal of our fortunes, with emphasis ranging from demographics to poor public relations, from economic stagnation to short-sighted political manoeuvering. One popular
explanation is that Canadian higher education is now Qustly) paying off debts it incurred in a Faustian compact with homo economicus. We financed our tremendous growth of yesteryear, this explanation purports, on promises of contributing substantially (or worse, by ourselves, delivering) unprecedented economic growth and industrial expansion. Now that industrial expansion has come to a standstill (and even declined), the primary case for generous funding of higher education is at best called into question, and at worst severely undermined. For those who accept this retributional explanation of the cause of the current crisis of finance and purpose in higher education, Global Stakes
"I feel like I am going crazy and need to run some things by you," said an administrative colleague. When we met, he began to describe a series of unsettling incidents. He wondered: Were they intentionally designed to signal that he was no longer wanted? Aimed at making him and the people in his program feel nervous and disoriented?
Two former college presidents, both longtime scholars of higher education, discuss their new book on the problems - - real and imagined -- facing academe.
Over the past year Canadians have borne witness to some of the greatest economic uncertainty in our history. As the global economy fell into a deep recession, many Canadians were laid off or unable to continue to work full-time, while others left the labour market, retiring early or heading back to school.
In hard times Canadians look to their government for leadership. In response to this demand the federal government embarked on one of the most expensive spending programs in Canada’s history. The 2009 budget included over $50 billion in stimulus spending. Despite this massive investment–arguably the biggest re-engagement of the federal government in decades–there was nothing offered to make college and university more affordable or help the thousands of students and graduates with mortgagesized debt loads.
The time for meaningful transformation in Ontario’s post-secondary system is now. To meet the needs of the emerging economy, reform must focus on innovation and applied learning that vaults our province ahead of its competition
in creating the best-educated, best-prepared workforce in the world. Composed of distinct but equally valued and complementary partners, Ontario’s transformed post- secondary system will ensure that all students can reach their full potential through a broad array of theoretical and applied learning opportunities. Colleges will continue to be student focused, specializing in applied learning that leads to good jobs for graduates, addresses labour market needs and affords access to the broadest possible population. Colleges and universities will offer a range of credentials within their systems and collaborate on a multitude of programs that offer students the best of both. Expanded pathways will give students the opportunity to customize their post-secondary experience to match their interests. Online and blended learn- ing, married to leading-edge
technology, will enable students to learn anywhere, anytime, and in ways best suited to their learning styles. Students will be better prepared than ever before to meet the demands of the economy, and they will achieve their goals faster and at less cost.
Most graduate research degrees culminate in a thesis. Thesis students require supervisors. There are few relationships more important to these students than their relationship with their supervisor. The centrality of this relationship requires that it be entered into and maintained with great care. It is incumbent on the University to do everything possible to provide guidance in how to maximize the likelihood of excellent supervision. The School of Graduate Studies (SGS) is charged with the responsibility of providing that guidance for the University graduate community. The previous version of this document is now 10 years old. It is time for the update that follows.
Ontario ranks among Canada’s top-performing provinces on equity of outcomes in kindergarten to Grade 12 education and high school attainment.1 The province also earns an “A+” for college attainment in the Conference Board of Canada’s How Canada Performs rankings.2 What makes Ontario such a strong performer in these areas?
In part, these good results are due to special programs targeting individuals who are at high risk of dropping out of school. One such initiative is the School Within a College (SWAC) program. SWAC helps struggling students complete high school and get a head start on a college or apprenticeship credential. Other jurisdictions can take a page from the SWAC program’s model of transitioning struggling students into college-ready learners.
A few decades ago it was possible for most business leaders to do their jobs blissfully unaware of issues pertaining to societal welfare, conditions in the natural environment, the health and work-life concerns of employees, and human rights in nascent global supply chains, among numerous other matters. They were largely unaffected by activist NGOs and shareholder resolutions, the threat of protests and boycotts, not to mention calls for greater transparency and the dramatic increase in exposure by the Internet.
For many young women and girls in Canada, their opportunity to participate equally in Canadian society and their right to lead successful and fulfilling lives may be disrupted by acts of gender-based violence. Acknowledging the serious impact of such violence on young women and girls, the House of Commons Standing Committee on the Status of Women (“the Committee”) agreed on 8 March 2016, to conduct a study on violence against young women and girls in Canada.
This report examines skill trends in 24 OECD countries over the past several decades. The skill measures used include broad occupation groups, country-specific direct measures of skill requirements from international surveys, and direct skill measures from the Occupational Information Network (O*NET) database applied to both United States and European labour force surveys. Each kind of data has its own strengths and limitations but they tell a consistent story.
The research PhD was created to support the development of individuals able to use the power of rigorous scholarly inquiry to advance society. If the academy is committed to ensuring the relevance of the degree for the 21st century, we need to understand how our graduates are, or could be, contributing to the world today. This information will help tremendously in raising awareness of, and increasing the transparency about, potential careers, and in informing our educational endeavours.
In the last decade, the Canadian province dramatically improved its education system to become one of the best in the world. Its innovative strategy can provide a blueprint for U.S. reform.
Ontario is Canada's largest province, home to over 13 million people and a public education system with roughly 2 million students, 120,000 educators, and 5,000 schools. As recently as 2002, this system was stagnant by virtually any measure of performance. In October 2003, a new provincial government (Canada has no federal agency or jurisdiction in education) was elected with a mandate and commitment to transform it.