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As higher education is pressured to prove its students' readiness to work, preparing marketing students to become successful professionals requires faculty to employ a myriad of approaches. Among these approaches that emerged over the past 30 years are client-sponsored projects (CSP) as a superior method to transferring practical experience compared to utilizing text-based case studies. However, according to recent surveys, industry remains unsatisfied with baccalaureate graduates' readiness to work. Graduating student-preparedness surveys show employers claim an absence of key skills among baccalaureate graduates. To address the gap between current industry survey results, while drawing on CSP literature, this article introduces a semester-long CSP pedagogy where the classroom, face-to-face or virtual, becomes an immersion of a typical corporate team project culture thereby practicing the very skills industry report students lack. In the model presented, students serve as consultants by developing an executable marketing plan for implementation by a client company. The procedures presented yield an experience providing students with performance expectations, much like an individual working in a business environment. During the semester-long journey, students develop the key competencies to specifically address the highlighted skill gaps from surveys among hiring managers. Although most CSPs are tools to help students hone some abilities, most projects typically become nothing more than another teaching tactic. The distinctiveness of the immersion approach presented in this article expands the use of CSP with a rigorous corporate-like in-class experience for both face-to-face and fully online courses. This article describes procedures educators can use for developing a classroom experience integrating real-business world pressures, coaching, and accountability to better prepare graduating students for their careers and satisfy the skills business managers expect.

Despite proliferative use of anatomical virtual models, there are few studies exploring whether stereoscopic models help medical students retain information regarding three-dimensional (3D) relationships of structures. This pilot study examined first-year medical students' exposure to a virtual 3D stereoscopic pelvis model and their corresponding short- and long-term retention. Participants were administered a series of tests before and after their 3D learning experience, including a pre-3D test, a mental rotation test (MRT), a short-term post-3D test, a block exam, and a long-term post-3D test. Students also completed a survey exploring their satisfaction with 3D imaging in general and its effectiveness in teaching anatomical material. Exam results were analyzed using a repeated measures ANOVA, and the pre-3D test scores within the 3D groups, were compared using one-way ANOVA's with each of the other performance measures. Final results showed a significantly higher difference in the students' pre-3D test and their immediate short-term retention post-3D test scores. Results also showed a significantly lower difference in students' pre-3D test and their one-month long-term retention test scores. There was no significant difference in the students' pre-3D and six-month long-term retention test scores. However, small sample sizes suggest further research on correlations between stereoscopic imaging of pelvic anatomy and other complex regions and students' short- and long-term retention.

This essay provides a novel history of Christian Realism, its key themes, and the persistence of this analytical framework for nearly a century. Christian Realism is a community of discourse associated with scholars and foreign policy observers like Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Ramsey, but lives on today in the writings of Christian just war thinkers, international relations scholars, ethicists, and policy experts. Three generations of Christian Realism focus on anti-utopianism, anti-totalitarianism, and similar perspectives. Christian Realists share a continuity of approach to policy analyses from a distinctly Augustinian perspective. Both the theological themes--sin, human potential, limits and restraint, neighbor love--and the major foreign policy questions of war, security, and peace, have a certain perennial quality, whether the theorist is of the first (1932-65), second (1965-90), or the contemporary third generation (1991-present). This essay looks at the theological themes, the perennial questions Christian Realists address, and the increasingly orthodox theological commitments of today's Christian Realists as compared to the theological liberals of Niebuhr's era., WHAT IS CHRISTIAN REALISM? When Reinhold Niebuhr passed away on 1 June 1971, many thought that Christian Realism passed along with him. Jean Bethke Elshtain rightly called Niebuhr the 'most [...]

National Research Council polices (NRC, 2012a, 2012b) and the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) of 2015 (Pub. L. No. 114-145) call for educators to have active roles in teaching to achieve new goals and purposes for education. A high priority is teaching content knowledge and information fluency skills that will result in deep learning, higher order thinking, and college and career readiness. Information fluency involves abilities to find, evaluate and use print and digital information effectively, efficiently and ethically to create knowledge useful in solving real-world problems. This action research (Blaxter, Hughes, and Tight, 2010) investigates co-teaching in a college, undergraduate physical sciences course. Information and technology literacy skills (ACRL, 2016) were taught in the context of a 12-week unit about the design of control variable experiments. Co-teaching was done by a professor of physical sciences and a professor of library and information science. Assignment learning objectives provided a framework for analysis of 24 students' scores that tells a story of the process of co-teaching through articulation of two professors' engagement in instructional interactions, creation of materials and strategies to increase information fluency as well as descriptions of students' completion of assignments. It was concluded that co-teaching effectiveness involves intensity of effort in shared planning, organization, delivery and assessment of instruction; shared physical and/or virtual space of instruction; and in the combining two areas of academic expertise in delivery of cross-curricular instruction.

Although Kenneth W. Thompson admired Reinhold Niebuhr's political realism, he expressed reservations about Niebuhr's method of moral reasoning. More specifically, Thompson argued that Niebuhr's habit of introducing abstract moral criteria into discussions of foreign policy problems was the source of his "deepest insights and his most misleading political estimates." We contrast Thompson's own method of moral reasoning--one rooted in what political philosophers would today recognize as a type of virtue ethics--with Niebuhr's and argue that Thompson's approach to moral reasoning provides a more consistent approach to foreign policy than did Niebuhr's. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES) is the most widely used self-report measure of dissociation but lacks a validity scale. Abu-Rus et al. (2020) created the DES-V by embedding atypical and inconsistency items in the DES, ultimately concluding that atypicality demonstrated the greatest ability to differentiate honest respondents from feigners. Among their study limitations, Abu-Rus et al. noted the homogeneous nature of their clinical group (i.e., largely comprising individuals with PTSD) and the potential need to refine the existing atypicality items for a more heterogenous dissociation population. The current study aimed to refine the DES-V by enlisting dissociation experts to improve the believability of the atypical items (while simultaneously ensuring they did not betoken any actual dissociative symptomology) and by supplementing the online sample with a clinical sample that included a broad range of dissociative disorders. Data cleaning comprised eight different techniques, to better ensure the validity of the online sample. Honest and Feigning groups completed the assessments through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk; the clinical dissociative disorder group completed hard copy versions. The atypicality scale discriminated the three groups well, with the Feigning group scoring significantly higher than both of the honest groups (online and clinical). The mean atypicality scores of the two honest groups did not differ significantly. In addition, the scale incremented over the original DES-V in a logistic regression predicting honest and feigning participants. These robust results suggest that the revised DES-V could provide researchers with a valuable tool for validating online samples with greater precision – an increasingly vital need in light of the growing reliance on online samples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Repeated measurements of student ability (i.e., progressing monitoring) is an essential element of informed decision-making when adjusting instruction. An important characteristic of progress monitoring measures is frequent administration to identify areas of concern and to evaluate academic growth. The purpose of this study was to determine if STAR Math is sensitive to small incremental growth across a semester. Within two southern school districts, 114 fifth grade students' progress monitoring data were collected weekly, and a latent growth curve was used to estimate students' change in math ability. Results indicated STAR Math is sensitive to small incremental growth, with a statistically significant and positive slope, suggesting students using STAR Math showed improvement in ability over the semester.

Student struggles in gross anatomy coursework at the professional level can result in hours of remediation along with a need to allot time and other resources by both the student and the faculty. Since this course typically occurs in the first semester of the first year, programs can turn to admissions data to try to determine which of these students may struggle. This study looked at two years of medical (n = 280) and dental (n = 78) students to determine if there is a relationship between pre-admissions anatomy coursework and performance in gross anatomy at the professional school level. Students provided data regarding their past anatomy coursework and final grades in professional school gross anatomy courses were obtained. In addition, students responded to questions regarding their feelings of preparation and how they valued the prior anatomy coursework as it related to the professional course. Statistical analysis showed no difference in final course grade between students with and without prior anatomy in either program. Counter to the numerical data, 96.6% of the students in the study recommended an anatomy course prior to pursuing a health science degree. The primary reasons given for this recommendation were the benefits of repeated content exposure, knowledge of the anatomy terminology, and decreased stress regarding the course. The results from this study suggest that the benefits of prior anatomy may be seen more in the students' stress and quality of life rather in the numerical performance of course grades.

This special issue was developed in collaboration with the 2021 Midwest Academy of Management (MWAOM) Conference in Davenport, Iowa. It is the MWAOM's inaugural special issue with the Journal of [...]

Due to the current trend of decreasing contact hours and less emphasis being given to the basic science courses in the pre-clinical years of medical education, it is essential that new approaches to teaching gross anatomy are investigated to ensure medical students are being adequately exposed to anatomical content. This study retrospectively analyzed practical examination data from four medical gross anatomy classes (N = 569) to ascertain which pedagogical approach, student participation in the dissection process, or interaction with prosected specimens is best for teaching the anatomy of the hand and foot. Data analysis involved the use of propensity score matching, a nonparametric preprocessing statistical approach which ensures accurate representation of the true treatment effect by balancing cohorts prior to statistical analysis. Statistical analysis indicated that those students who were exposed to the anatomy of the hand through interactions with prosected specimens performed 5.6% better (P = 0.012) while for the foot, students who interacted with prosections performed 13.0% better (P < 0.001). Although limited, data from this study suggest that utilizing prosections of the hand and foot seems to be a more advantageous pedagogical approach for teaching these regions than requiring students to dissect them.

The market for college students is trending lower and future projections are not encouraging. We must take action to make our programs more competitive. Using in part, the O*NET database, the authors propose a set of processes to assess business students' (and particularly management students') career aspirations and to align them with the defined knowledge, skills, and technical abilities needed to make graduates more market ready and more attractive to employers. These changes will create more pull in the market (more organizations will want our graduates) and more push in the market (more students will desire to enter our programs).

Research has suggested that changing one's answer on multiple-choice examinations is more likely to lead to positive academic outcomes. This study aimed to further understand the relationship between changing answer selections and item attributes, student performance, and time within a population of 158 first-year medical students enrolled in a gross and developmental anatomy course at an academic medical institution in the United States. For each student, answer changes, overall exam performance, and individual item performance data were retrieved from an online testing software for a single block exam. Researchers determined how many times students changed their answers, the associated outcomes, and time spent on each item and the entire exam in relation to item performance. Students in the highest performing quartiles were more likely to keep their initial answer selection, spent more time choosing their initial answer selection, and averaged a higher total exam time than each of the lowest two performance quartiles. Time on individual items and answer changes had a statistically significant relationship, with more time relating to the presence of an answer change. Changing an answer selection was more likely to result in a negative outcome. The content subject was significant in relation to answer changes and time spent per item. This study provides a deeper understanding into which factors, such as item attributes, time, and performance of the student, showed statistically significant relationships to answer changing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]