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Isolation of online doctoral students intensifies when they transition from coursework to the dissertation/capstone phase, limiting them to interacting with their mentors. A three-round modified Delphi study was conducted to examine mentoring preferences of online doctoral students and faculty. The first round provided qualitative data regarding the preferred mentoring practices for faculty and alumni. Round 1 qualitative data were organized into Likert questions and used in the second round, which resulted in data about frequency of mentoring practices for the same participants from Round 1. The third round provided data about importance of each preference rated by faculty and current students. Findings indicated a dichotomy was present in that mentees' academic self-esteem appeared to be tied to faculty being responsive. Faculty emphasized mentee autonomy while mentees wanted frequent contact with faculty.

This study examines whether a college orientation course for online programs leads to increased self-efficacy and, if so, which course topics are related to changes in students' self-efficacy. The culminating research question explores whether self-efficacy is related to enrollment persistence. Students' self-efficacy scores improved significantly after taking the orientation course, as measured with a general self-efficacy instrument. In particular, three course topics--characteristics of leadership, personal learning styles, and applying reading comprehension techniques--explained the variance in post-self-efficacy scores at statistically significant levels. For predicting persistence, a model encompassing three topics (characteristics of leadership, personal learning styles, and applying reading comprehension techniques), plus pre- and post- self-efficacy scores, explained 50% of the variance. (Contains 3 tables.)

In the present study, the effect of phonological and working memory mechanisms involved in spelling Italian single words was explored in two groups of children matched for grade level: a group of normally hearing children and a group of pre-verbally deaf children, with severe-to-profound hearing loss. Three-syllable and four-syllable familiar words were presented to the two groups for spelling to dictation. Three conditions were used: simple spelling, concurrent articulation, and foot tapping. Verbal digit span was also assessed. Overall, the performance of deaf children tended to be lower compared to hearing children, but not significantly so. Concurrent articulation produced more errors than tapping in both groups. Regression analyses showed that the main predictor in all three tasks was school level, however the proportion of variance explained by this factor was much greater in the dual tasks, in particular in concurrent articulation. Qualitative analyses of errors showed a worse performance of deaf children, with a greater proportion of mixed errors compared to hearing children. They also showed a greater proportion of phonologically plausible errors compared to hearing children, presumably due to their deprived auditory representation, and/or to phonological representations that rely to a large extent on lip reading and kinesthetic and visual perception of articulatory gestures.

This study explores how preschoolers with cochlear implants process numerical comparisons from two different inputs: a) nonverbal (analogical) and b) verbal (symbolic). Preschool cochlear-implanted children (CI) ranging in age from 4;3 to 6;1 were compared with 99 age-matched hearing children (HC) in three numerical tasks: verbal counting, a digit comparison and a dot comparison. Results show that CI children may outperform HC in numerical tasks that require visuo-spatial analysis (e.g. analogical comparison). More importantly, they perform as well as HC in numerical tasks that require symbolic processes (digit comparison) and in verbal counting. However, when the influence of children's verbal counting skills on digit comparison is examined differences between the two groups emerge. HC's capacity to compare digits was influenced by their knowledge of the verbal counting system, but this knowledge was not influential when CI children's performance in the same task was considered. These findings suggest that different strategies may characterize the way the two groups tackle symbolic numerical comparisons. The educational and instructional implications of these findings are discussed. (Contains 1 table, 1 footnote, and 2 figures.)

Philippine banana is currently threatened by Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense Tropical Race 4 (FocR4). This study investigated the use of Trichoderma harzianum pre-treated with Glomus spp, as a means of managing Fusarium wilt on young ‘Lakatan’ banana seedlings. Results showed that Glomus applied basally significantly improved banana seedling growth with increased increment in plant height and pseudostem diameter and heavier root weight. The application of Glomus spp. alone offered 100% protection to the ‘Lakatan’ seedlings against FocR4 as indicated by the absence of the wilting symptom. A combination of T. harzianum and Glomus spp. also gave significant effect against Fusarium wilt through delayed disease progression in the seedlings but was not synergistic. Competitive effects were suspected when application of the two biological control agents on banana roots was done simultaneously.