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Objective: To identify differences in preferences related to telepsychiatry among college students who have and have not been diagnosed with a mental health condition in the last year. Participants: Students (n = 537) at a medium-sized Midwestern university (M[subscript age] = 21 years; 71% female). Methods: A quantitative, causal-comparative design using an adapted version of the National College Health Assessment (NCHA). Differences in preferences among groups were analyzed by chi-square and Cramer's "V" analyses with a 95% confidence interval. Results: Students did not differ in their preferences or perceptions (confidentiality, time, cost, effectiveness) of face-to-face in-person compared to telecommunication treatment environments despite their mental health history. A majority of students (76%) would prefer seeing their regular provider if using telepsychiatry in the future. Conclusions: Implementing a higher education telepsychiatry model, especially within college health centers, could help students' access much-needed services while breaking down barriers such as transportation and wait lists.

This qualitative study examined the mathematics self-confidence of eight junior high school students who were moved to an above-grade-level mathematics class through a nontraditional process. Teachers were concerned about how this transition may impact students' beliefs about their abilities to succeed in mathematics. Data were collected through interviews that included solving challenging mathematical tasks as a means to consider how students expressed their self-confidence in mathematics in general. Using a socio-constructivist lens with a focus on mediation, findings included themes about tensions given students' initial placement, changes in the role of self-confidence as a mediator, feelings of belonging as having multiple mediator roles, workarounds as mediators, and self-regulation strategies as internalized mediators that students brought with them to their transition. These findings point to solutions and supports for students who enroll in above-grade-level courses to view themselves as successful.

Administrators who can create cultures that combine high levels of challenge and support are more likely to foster higher levels of educator success. Authors?Wendy Anderson and Kathy Schuh share effective leadership methods to support new teacher efficacy, including balancing autonomy with feedback, professionalism with self-care, and risk with advocacy.

Early life stress (ELS) experiences can cause changes in cognitive and affective functioning. This study examined the persistent effects of a single traumatic event in infancy on several adult behavioral outcomes in male and female C57BL/6J mice. Mice received 15 footshocks in infancy and were tested for stress-enhanced fear learning, extinction learning, discrimination and reversal learning, and novel object recognition. Infant trauma potentiated fear learning in adulthood and produced resistance to extinction but did not influence other behaviors, suggesting restricted effects of infant trauma on behaviors reliant on cortico-amygdala circuitry.

While the literature on firm mergers and acquisitions (M&A) is quite extensive, systematic approaches to analyze mergers in the public research sector are still scarce and focus only on the higher education sector. This article provides, for the first time, systematic empirical evidence on the extent and characteristics of M&A in public-sector research in Europe, by building on a novel dataset comprising demographic events since the year 2000. The goal of this study is to characterize such events in terms of organizations involved, types of events, and regional distribution. We find that M&A constituted a major change process within European public research. Nearly 400 events occurred in Europe between 2000 and 2016 with an increasing trend over time; M&A involved nearly one-fifth of public-sector research organizations and were geographically distributed across two-fifths of all European regions. Demographic events concerned primarily specialist institutions and to a larger extent public research entities and colleges. While the strong involvement of colleges was expected from the literature, for the first time we can show the extensive restructuring which took place in the public research entity sector. On the contrary, well known and prestigious university mergers, largely driven by the quest for international visibility, constituted only 10% of the events. Finally, we identified six broad groups of events characterized in terms of two dimensions, i.e. whether the involved organizations are active on the same or different markets and the extent of overlap between subject offerings.

The purpose of this study was to develop the Student Knowledge Linking Instrument (SKLI), an inventory for middle grades students that seeks to understand student knowledge construction processes. This study included 461 fifth and sixth grade students and follows from a series of qualitative studies that were used as a foundation for development of the SKLI. The SKLI captures student knowledge linking through student responses to brief reading passages and is proposed to capture the students' situation definition (Wertsch, 1985), specifically their initial links with the information. Eight student linking profiles emerged from these students' data, with students on one end of the spectrum drawing on surface characteristics of the text in their linking, while others used more elaborative links that indicated a depth of processing. These profiles were hypothesized to be developmentally ordered, supported by an increase in elaborative links for some sixth grade students in this group.

The BioHealth Capital Region (Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, DC; BHCR) is flush with colleges and universities training students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines and has one of the most highly educated workforces in the United States. However, current educational approaches and business recruitment tactics are not drawing sufficient talent to sustain the bioscience workforce pipeline. Surveys conducted by the Mid-Atlantic Biology Research and Career Network identified a disconnect between stakeholders who are key to educating, training, and hiring college and university graduates, resulting in several impediments to workforce development in the BHCR: (1) students are underinformed or unaware of bioscience opportunities before entering college and remain so at graduation; (2) students are not job ready at the time of graduation; (3) students are mentored to pursue education beyond what is needed and are therefore overqualified (by degree) for most of the available jobs in the region; (4) undergraduate programs generally lack any focus on workforce development; and (5) few industry-academic partnerships with undergraduate institutions exist in the region. The reality is that these issues are neither surprising nor restricted to the BHCR. Recommendations are presented to facilitate improvement in the preparation of graduates for today's bioscience industries throughout the United States.

In this paper, we discuss the activity systems of students and instructors who used an interactive e-textbook in their instructional activities. Data included instructor interviews and student journals about e-textbook use in eight university courses. Exploration of the data through a cultural-historical activity theory lens indicated that e-textbook use can be limited when students act on it merely as an object without any intentional goal. Without requirements by the instructor, the embedded tools in the e-textbook may do little to support the student activity in the system. In addition, many instructors, as well, approached the e-textbook as an object, and a number of them did not include the e-textbook in their own activity systems. Considering the e-textbook as a mediating tool to address other goals (such as completing an assignment) or to support instructional decisions by faculty through developed awareness of students' understandings, positioned the e-textbook as a mediator of learning, rather than an object on which to act. We end our discussion pointing to the need for an expansive transformation regarding the use of e-textbooks so they may be positioned as new kinds of mediating tools for learning.

This study examines how institutional expenditures and grants (student financial aid) relate to retention and graduation. It looks at this relationship over a 10-year period and examines differences between institutions with low- and high-admissions selectivity standards. In general, expenditures for institutional grants positively contributed to retention and graduation rates except at high-selectivity institutions, where institutional grants did not significantly contribute to retention and graduation rates. (Contains 2 tables.)

This study incorporated institutional characteristics (e.g., Carnegie type, selectivity) and resource allocations (e.g., instructional expenditures, student affairs expenditures) into a statistical model to predict undergraduate graduation rates. Instructional expenditures, library expenditures, and a number of institutional classification variables were significant predictors of graduation rates. Based on these results, recommendations as well as warranted cautions are included about allocating academic financial resources to optimize graduation rates. (Contains 5 tables and 2 notes.)

E-textbooks are more prevalent in college courses, but much recent research still shows that students prefer paper textbooks and have difficulty regulating their learning with digital course materials. Still, college instructors--especially in lower-division STEM courses--often adopt digital course materials with e-textbooks that include a variety of metacognitive supports that students may not use. The purpose of this study was to test whether an intervention that drew upon the principles of the Technology Acceptance Model could facilitate better adoption of an interactive e-textbook in a large, introductory biology course. Participants included 239 undergraduate students from laboratory sections that were randomly assigned to a treatment or control group. The treatment group viewed a video detailing the most beneficial ways to interact with an e-textbook. A pre- and post-test were administered to the participants in both groups. The treatment group had higher overall satisfaction, on average, with the e-textbook than the control group but did not report using the interactive tools more often. The implications for instruction with digital course materials are discussed.

Researchers have more often examined whether students prefer using an e-textbook over a paper textbook or whether e-textbooks provide a better resource for learning than paper textbooks, but students' adoption of mark-up tools has remained relatively unexamined. Drawing on the concept of Innovation Diffusion Theory, we used educational data mining techniques and survival analysis to examine time to adoption of highlights, notes, annotations, bookmarks, and questions in an interactive e-textbook reader. We found that the only tool that more than half of the participants used was highlighting. Students who purchased a printed copy of the textbook had longer average times to using notes and annotations. Because most of the more interactive tools were used by a relatively small number of students, regression modeling of the factors associated with tool usage was difficult. However, there was evidence that the likelihood of using the tools decreased as the semester progressed, and that students' self-reported reading behaviors and grade point average were predictive of the time to using the mark-up tools. An interaction between bookmark usage and amount of reading was positively associated with course grades, suggesting that a strategy of bookmarking with frequent reading could assist students to learn content successfully. The implications of this research are that (1) instructors may need to more directly scaffold the adoption of interactive e-textbook tools that are touted as boosts to student learning and (2) promoting adoption early, shortly after students begin reading the e-textbook, is critical for students to acclimate to using the tool.

Youth with disabilities, compared with their typical peers, have a higher likelihood of dropping out of school and experience poorer transition outcomes. Evidence supports programs and interventions focusing on inclusive education and leadership skills results in successful transition to college and career. This article describes the experiences of six youth with and without disabilities as they participate in the Youth Empowerment Series, a project helping students navigate the path to postsecondary education and/or employment. A phenomenological approach and photoelicitation was used to gather information about participant's transition experiences. Findings suggest participants valued forming personal connections and friendships as they entered adulthood. Themes included acceptance, leadership, self-advocacy, inclusion, and planning for future goals. Participants were aware of transition needs and goals and had an understanding of the support systems needed to reach their goals. Future research on the role of friendship networks in transition planning as a natural support is warranted.

This study focused on the development of a new classroom environment instrument for late-elementary students. The development of the survey of contemporary learning environments (SoCLE) followed a content analysis of three similar instruments on constructivist learning environments and the literature on characteristics of contemporary learning environments. Through a bottom-up development process, grounded in the epistemological foundations of constructivism, we note the difficulty in operationalizing student perceptions of contemporary learning environments and point to challenges in developing well-grounded construct validity. In a field study of 453 fifth-sixth grade students, the SoCLE was defined with three subscales: Reflective Processes (a?=?0.68), Ownership (a?=?0.65), and Multiple Perspectives (a?=?0.53). The Ownership and Multiple Perspectives subscales indicated relationships with overall academic achievement assessed by a nation-wide testing program, the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills. In a multiple linear regression model, ownership predicted the overall composite achievement score, as well as reading comprehension, social studies, and science subscores. Multiple perspectives predicted the language subscore. These findings highlight that characteristics of contemporary learning environments that are epistemologically based may support achievement in late-elementary students.

Based on experiences over the past 2 decades, the authors look at some of the challenges of making predictions and then offer some thoughts about student affairs practice in the foreseeable future.

This chapter describes and discusses the topics covered in the "New Directions for Student Services" sourcebook series from 1997 through 2014 and provides a profile of the guest editors for the series.

The chapter discusses learning that has resulted from selected international professional development experiences.

This study describes student perceptions of potential elaborative or generative learning strategies called student knowledge links. This construct was assessed using the Student Knowledge Linking Instrument-Perceptions (SKLIP), a new learning inventory to measure late-elementary student perceptions of the creation of student knowledge links. After conducting two pilot studies, a total of 469 fifth-and sixth-grade students participated in the field study. With an internal reliability of [alpha] = 0.80, this 13-item instrument included three subscales: "Seeking Relationships," "School Learning across Time and Content," and "Contextual Remindings." Post hoc analysis indicated that for some out-of-school links such as connections to people they know or places they have been, students try to determine if the link would be helpful in their learning. However, students who indicated making connections to TV shows or movies were also more likely to say they would then stop paying attention in class.

What is a culture of assessment? According to this author, in a culture of assessment, staff members recognize that they must collect evidence systematically to demonstrate accountability to their stakeholders, and that they must use that evidence to improve. Fundamental to the concept is the author's back-of-the-envelope definition of culture that has as a central element the phrase "how we do things here." In the case of a culture of assessment, "how we do things here" includes a commitment to stakeholders and a dedication to improvement. Some institutions already may have a culture of assessment; others may not have thought about this concept very much. Accordingly, this chapter identifies twelve elements that contribute to developing a culture of assessment in student affairs. First is a recognition that a culture of assessment recognizes that assessment is a commitment of accountability to stakeholders but also a commitment to continuous improvement. Second is a commitment to student affairs practice that is called positive restlessness and a commitment to continuous innovation. Third is that institutions with a culture of assessment are self-critical. Fourth is an approach the author identifies as data-driven decision making. Fifth, assessments need to be conducted across the institution. Sixth, using multiple forms of assessment contributes to a culture of assessment. Seventh, learning outcomes need to be identified and measured. Eighth, while someone needs to be in charge, all student affairs staff members should pitch in when it comes to assessment. The ninth element is that results are communicated and acted upon. Tenth, and closely related to number six, discretionary resources are used to seed assessment projects. Eleventh, another budgetary item, is that assessment findings are rewarded with resources. Finally, the twelfth element is that formal events are used to celebrate and discuss assessment results.

Through this study the authors evaluate outcomes associated with the use of handheld computers by interventionists in improving the efficiency of direct systematic classroom observation. Information from observations is used by interventionists for treatment planning and evaluation. In this study, interventionists were trained to use personal digital assistants with classroom observational software for use with students who displayed low levels of academic engagement. Results indicated that the personal digital assistants and observational software were perceived as user-friendly, increased computer self-efficacy, and facilitated treatment planning and evaluation. Discussion focuses on implications for use of handheld computers and mobile devices by interventionists. (Contains 2 tables.)

Themes of place, situatedness, and locale are increasingly prominent in environmental education literature and practice. Sense-of-place research, which considers how people connect with places and the influence of those connections on engagement with the environment, may have important implications for environmental education. Prior place studies have proposed that people's place connections have various dimensions. This paper explores four place dimensions, analyzing data from a survey (n = 712) conducted in three ecoregional sites in which we investigated residents' sense of place. We examine how our data fit a proposed typology of place dimensions--a four-dimension (biophysical, psychological, sociocultural, and political-economic) categorization based on previous conceptions of the dimensions of place. We use structural equation modeling to question whether a 4-factor conceptualization of the dimensions of sense of place is superior to plausible alternatives. In comparing the four-dimension model with alternative models, we find that the four-dimension model is the best fit for these data. Our findings suggest that environmental and place-based education may benefit from an understanding and consideration of this four-dimension conceptualization of place in program design, implementation, and evaluation. (Contains 12 notes, 1 figure and 4 tables.)

A few years ago, in "Student Success in College (SSiC)," the authors profiled twenty colleges and universities that were unusually effective in fostering student engagement and success, defined as better-than-predicted scores on the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) and better-than-predicted graduation rates. These schools are exemplars of what is right with higher education, and much can be learned from them. The authors contacted these schools recently to determine whether they have been able to maintain their strong performance. By and large, they have. Through 2009, their graduation rates were comparable to those in 2002, which was when the authors identified this group of institutions as worthy of in-depth study. In fact, ten schools increased their graduation rates by at least four percent, and two (George Mason University and The Evergreen State College) increased theirs by at least ten percent. NSSE scores also were comparable to those in 2002. This article illustrates some of what these institutions did to stay true to their commitments to foster student success. Using examples from a half dozen of the schools with different missions and structural features, the authors discuss some of the obstacles they overcame and the opportunities they created or took advantage of that allowed them to do this. The authors found that four key conditions for sustaining good work in hard times characterize all these institutions: (1) An ethic of positive restlessness permeates the campus; (2) Data about students and their success inform deliberations and decisions about the curriculum and other institutional priorities; (3) Academic and student affairs staff collaborate to foster student success; and (4) Campus leaders work assiduously to increase the numbers of faculty and staff who understand the importance of and become committed to student success. (Contains 11 resources.)

This paper reviews the complex literature on language acquisition in the autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Because of the high degree of interest in ASD in the past decade, the field has been changing rapidly, with progress in both basic science and applied clinical areas. In addition, psycholinguistically-trained researchers have increasingly begun to test theories of language acquisition in studies of ASD, because it is characterized by meaningful differences in ability across a wide range of language, social, and cognitive domains. As such, ASD has served as a "natural laboratory" in which to explore a variety of theories of language acquisition. We provide an overview of the current state of knowledge of language acquisition in autism spectrum disorders, also noting gaps in our current knowledge. We also review implications of this work for theories of typical language acquisition, and discuss some promising future directions. While the pragmatic deficits that characterize autism spectrum disorders are widely acknowledged, both clinicians and researchers should consider the phonological and morphosyntactic differences that likely play an important role in language comprehension and production for affected children.

What insights and generalisations can be drawn from looking across the work of multiple governmental and non-governmental organisations aimed at supporting basic education in low and medium income countries? To address this question, this study analysed findings of nine evaluation meta-studies completed by international assistance organisations, each of which was examining the effectiveness of their work in basic education over a multi-year period. The value of the underlying project activities reviewed in these evaluations represents 6-8 billion. Studies analysed with respect to (a) the criteria each used to judge success of their underlying projects, (b) the extent to which these studies focused on outcomes and impacts, (c) the extent to which projects were judged sustainable, (d) the adequacy of the project-level evaluations being reviewed, (e) what the underlying projects accomplished, (f) weaknesses identified in underlying project designs and (g) cost. A major weakness identified in almost all of the meta-studies reviewed was the paucity of evidence regarding the impact of the project activities in promoting student learning outcomes.

In this paper the augmentation of worked examples with animations for teaching problem-solving skills in mathematics is advocated as an effective instructional method. First, in a cognitive task analysis different knowledge prerequisites are identified for solving mathematical word problems. Second, it is argued that so called hybrid animations would be most effective for acquiring these prerequisites, because they show the continuous transition from a concrete, but superficial problem representation to a more abstract, mathematical problem model that forms a basis for solving a problem. An experiment was conducted, where N = 32 pupils from a German high school studied either only text-based worked examples explaining different problem categories from the domain of algebra or worked examples augmented with hybrid animations. Learners with hybrid animations showed superior problem-solving performance for problems of different transfer distance relative to those in the text-only condition.

Objective: Atomoxetine is a nonstimulant medication for treating child, adolescent, and adult ADHD. This meta-analysis compared the effects in younger and older adults. Method: A post hoc analysis was conducted using data from two double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trials. Data from patients aged 18-25 years were compared with data from patients older than 25 years. Results: In younger adults (mean age = 21.7), atomoxetine produces greater improvement than placebo on the Conners' Adult ADHD Rating Scale's total ADHD symptom score (p = 0.041, effect size = 0.797) and the clinical global impressions severity (p = 0.006, effect size = 1.121). In older adults (mean age = 43.4 years), atomoxetine also produces significant benefit on the CAARS-Inv:SV (p less than 0.001, effect size = 0.326) and CGI-ADHD-S (p less than 0.001, effect size = 0.346). The study findings reveal response rates to be 56.4% and 47.8% for the younger and older adults, respectively (p = 0.188). Tolerability is similar although older adults reported more sexual side effects. Conclusion: Younger and older adults show similar improvements at endpoint. The effect size is higher in younger adults, but this is due primarily to greater variability of response in older patients. (Contains 2 figures and 2 tables.)

Every reader of this volume will determine which information is most relevant to his or her home campus. Like their readers, the authors, as editors of the book, have identified prominent overarching themes and have organized this chapter around three of them. Accordingly, the authors highlight the three macrolevel approaches--identifying and implementing appropriate budget models and strategies, designing and disseminating effective communications, and creating and relying on key campus relations--that should help student affairs leaders get to the other side of almost any budget crisis. The authors end by posing several questions that warrant additional thought and ongoing response.

Global comparisons of learning from hypertext/hypermedia and traditional presentation formats like text have yet failed to show major advantages concerning the effectiveness of hypermedia learning. Thus, it is proposed in the current paper to evaluate hypermedia environments more specifically with regard to their potential to implement and support well-defined learning approaches. According to this view, an effective hypermedia design needs to be based on thorough cognitive task analyses with regard to structures, processes, and resources that are required to benefit from a specific learning approach. This claim is illustrated by two experiments in which we explored the instructional potential of hypermedia environments for improving schema acquisition from worked-out examples. A cognitive task analysis was used to identify specific types of information comparisons that are crucial for successful schema induction and that might be effectively supported by suitably designed hypermedia environments. The experiments investigated two methods for enhancing comparison processes in hypermedia-assisted learning from worked-out examples, namely, elaboration prompts and an interactive comparison tool. Both methods improved performance for near-transfer problems. Ways of extending this task-analytical approach to facilitating far transfer are also discussed.

The value of establishing a strong community in institutions of higher education has been in the forefront of the thinking of educators for a number of years. As colleges and universities have grown in complexity, establishing and sustaining strong campus communities has been described as challenging and difficult. John Gardner has provided a framework for thinking about and developing communities that is instructive for colleges and universities. Among the characteristics that he has conceptualized for good communities are the following: They incorporate and value diversity, they have a shared culture, they foster internal communication, they promote caring, trust and teamwork, they have group maintenance processes and governance structures that encourage participation and sharing of leadership tasks, they foster the development of young people, and they have links to the outside world. We also believe that strong communities incorporate rituals and ceremonies that celebrate their culture. Using Gardner's framework, we have examined data from the Documenting Effective Education Practice research project (DEEP) to determine the extent to which the concept of community is incorporated and nurtured at the research sites. Our conclusion was that DEEP institutions are strong communities that incorporate the elements of community. This article provides examples for each of Gardner's elements from DEEP institutions. It also provides questions for those institutions that wish to strengthen their sense of community.

The Inventory for Student Engagement and Success (ISES) is a self-guided framework for conducting a comprehensive, systematic analysis of the properties and conditions for student success that are present at an institution. It can be used to assess an entire institution; units within an institution, such as a school or department or an academic or student affairs division; or particular groups of students on campus. ISES can also be used to frame accreditation self-studies and program reviews or to organize staff development, strategic planning, or faculty or governing board retreats. The ISES process is similar to an institutional self-study in that it brings together representatives of the administration, faculty, student body, and other constituencies to review data about the institution and its educational programs, to identify institutional strengths and issues requiring action, and to define strategies to ensure that institutional strengths are maintained and any shortcomings are addressed. ISES makes use of information about students' experiences and institutional performance, such as results of outcomes assessments, student and faculty surveys, and unit or campus self-studies. ISES also can assist institutions in identifying and obtaining additional information relevant to students and their success. This article describes ISES and illustrates how its diagnostic queries can be used to inform and support institutional improvement efforts. This article offers examples of how several campuses adapted ISES to assess the conditions for student success and to inform institutional change initiatives. This article concludes with some lessons about using ISES that were learned from these examples. (Contains 2 notes.)

This study investigated the role of native language in the context of online versus face-to-face learning environments. Findings from a mixed-methods analysis revealed that native language was a factor in distinguishing among the learning opportunities in these two classes. Data for the online course were 10 archived asynchronous discussions on its threaded bulletin board. Data for the face-to-face course were verbatim transcripts of audio-taped recordings made during 10 of the 15 class sessions. Non-native speakers were more passive in the face-to-face classroom leaving the native speakers to assume leadership characteristics. In the online environments, non-native speakers and native speakers participated more equally in the discussion. Findings suggested that difficulties experienced by non-native speakers during impromptu face-to-face discussions may be alleviated given more opportunities and time for reflective articulation. (Contains 6 tables and 3 figures.)

Many institutions of higher education increasingly are concerned with retention and graduation rates. Focusing on private Baccalaureate Liberal and General colleges and universities, the purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between institutional selectivity and institutional expenditures and retention and graduation rates. Framed by Berger's ("2001-2002") view that organizational behavior can impact student departure, this inquiry examined if expenditures for instruction, academic support, student services, facilities, institutional support, and institutional grants (i.e. student financial aid) could predict retention and graduation rates at baccalaureate-granting institutions. Institutional selectivity and institutional expenditures, specifically those that directly contributed to students' academic integration, were found to contribute significantly to retention and graduation rates. Recommendations are suggested, including using the results to inform resource allocation strategies that can enhance retention and graduation rates.