Multiple Perspectives on Academic Service-Learning Partnerships at the American University in Cairo: A Mixed Method Study

This mixed method study aimed to redress the gap in the literature on academic service-learning partnerships, especially in Eastern settings. It utilized Enos and Morton's (2003) theoretical framework to explore these partnerships at the American University in Cairo (AUC). Seventy-nine community partners, administrators, faculty members, and students from a diverse range of age, citizenship, racial, educational, and professional backgrounds participated in the study. Qualitative interviews were conducted with members of these four groups, and a survey with both close-ended and open-ended questions administered to students yielded 61 responses. Qualitative analyses revealed that the primary motivators for partners' engagement in service-learning partnerships included contributing to the community, enhancing students' learning and growth, and achieving the civic mission of the University. These partnerships were characterized by short-term relationships with partners' aspiring to progress toward long-term commitments. The challenges to these partnerships included issues pertaining to the institution, partnering organizations, culture, politics, pedagogy, students, and faculty members. Key strategies for improving these partnerships included institutionalizing service-learning in the University and cultivating an institutional culture supportive of community engagement. Quantitative analyses showed statistically significant relationships between students' scores on the Community Awareness and Interpersonal Effectiveness scales and their overall participation in community service activities inside and outside the classroom, as well as a statistically significant difference between their scores on the Community Awareness scale and department offering service-learning courses. The study's outcomes underscore the role of the local culture in shaping service-learning partnerships, as well as the role of both curricular and extracurricular activities in boosting students' awareness of their community and interpersonal effectiveness. Cultivating a culture of community engagement and building support mechanisms for engaged scholarship are among the critical steps required by public policy-makers in Egypt to promote service-learning in Egyptian higher education. Institutionalizing service-learning partnerships at AUC and enhancing the visibility of these partnerships on campus and in the community are essential to the future growth of these collaborations. Future studies should explore factors affecting community partners' satisfaction with these partnerships, top-down and bottom-up support to service-learning, the value of reflection to faculty members, and the influence of students' economic backgrounds on their involvement in service-learning partnerships.

What We Are Learning About the Diverse Backgrounds of Academic Library Users: An Overview of Research Designs and Methods in Information Behaviour Studies

Academic libraries increasingly serve a more diverse population of users not only in regard to race and ethnicity, but also to age, gender, language, sexual orientation, and national and cultural backgrounds. This papers reports the findings of the study that explored information behaviour research as a potential source of information about diversity of academic library users and examined the relationship between the use of different research designs and data collection methods and the information gathered about users’ diverse backgrounds. The study found that information behaviour research offers limited insight into the diversity of academic library users. The choice of a research design was not critical but the use of multiple data collection played a role in gathering information about culturally diverse users.

An explanatory model of academic achievement based on aptitudes, goal orientations, self-concept and learning strategies

As a result of studies examining factors involved in the learning process, various structural models have been developed to explain the direct and indirect effects that occur between the variables in these models. The objective was to evaluate a structural model of cognitive and motivational variables predicting academic achievement, including general intelligence, academic self-concept, goal orientations, effort and learning strategies. The sample comprised of 341 Spanish students in the first year of compulsory secondary education. Different tests and questionnaires were used to evaluate each variable, and Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was applied to contrast the relationships of the initial model. The model proposed had a satisfactory fit, and all the hypothesised relationships were significant. General intelligence was the variable most able to explain academic achievement. Also important was the direct influence of academic self-concept on achievement, goal orientations and effort, as well as the mediating ability of effort and learning strategies between academic goals and final achievement.

The Influence of Gender, Intellectual Ability, Academic Self-Concept, Self-Regulation, Learning Strategies, Popularity and Parent Involvement in Early Adolescence

The present study examined the predictive effects of gender, intellectual ability, self-concept, motivation, learning strategies, popularity and parent involvement on academic achievement. Hiearchical regression analysis were performed with six steps in which each variable was included, among a sample of 1398 high school students (mean age = 12.5; standard deviation = .67) of eight education centers from the province of Alicante (Spain). The results revealed significant predictive effects of all of the variables, explaining 59.1% of the total variance.

Investigating Concept Mapping and Stimulated Recall to Reveal Academic Teacher Beliefs and how they are enacted through learning designs for the Web

Increasingly, academic teachers are designing their own web sites to add value to or replace other forms of university teaching. These web sites are tangible and dynamic constructions that represent the teachers thinking and decisions derived from an implicit belief system about teaching and learning. The emphasis of this study is to explore the potential of the research techniques of concept-mapping and stimulated recall to locate the implicit pedagogies of academic teachers and investigate how they are enacted through the learning designs of their web sites. The rationale behind such an investigation is that once these implicit belief systems are made visible, then conversations can commence about how these beliefs are transformed into practice, providing a potent departure point for academic development.

The influence of learning styles, enrolment status and gender on academic performance of optometry undergraduates

Purpose: This cross-sectional study was designed to determine whether the academic performance of optometry undergraduates is influenced by enrolment status, learning style or gender. Methods: Three hundred and sixty undergraduates in all 3 years of the optometry degree course at Aston University during 2008–2009 were asked for their informed consent to participate in this study. Enrolment status was known from admissions records. An Index of Learning Styles (http://www4.nscu.edu/unity/lockers/users/f/felder/public/Learning-Styles.html) determined learning style preference with respect to four different learning style axes; active-reflective, sensing-intuitive, visual-verbal and sequential-global. The influence of these factors on academic performance was investigated. Results: Two hundred and seventy students agreed to take part (75% of the cohort). 63% of the sample was female. There were 213 home non-graduates (entrants from the UK or European Union without a bachelor’s degree or higher), 14 home graduates (entrants from the UK or European Union with a bachelor’s degree or higher), 28 international non-graduates (entrants from outside the UK or European Union without a bachelor’s degree or higher) and 15 international graduates (entrants from outside the UK or European Union with a bachelor’s degree or higher). The majority of students were balanced learners (between 48% and 64% across four learning style axes). Any preferences were towards active, sensing, visual and sequential learning styles. Of the factors investigated in this study, learning styles were influenced by gender; females expressed a disproportionate preference for the reflective and visual learning styles. Academic performance was influenced by enrolment status; international graduates (95% confidence limits: 64–72%) outperformed all other student groups (home non graduates, 60–62%; international non graduates, 55–63%) apart from home graduates (57–69%). Conclusion: Our research has shown that the majority of optometry students have balanced learning styles and, from the factors studied, academic performance is only influenced by enrolment status. Although learning style questionnaires offer suggestions on how to improve learning efficacy, our findings indicate that current teaching methods do not need to be altered to suit varying learning style preferences as balanced learning styles can easily adapt to any teaching style (Learning Styles and Pedagogy in Post-16 Learning: A Systematic and Critical Review. London, UK: Learning and Skills Research Centre, 2004).

Complex skills and academic writing:a review of evidence about the types of learning required to meet core assessment criteria

Assessment criteria are increasingly incorporated into teaching, making it important to clarify the pedagogic status of the qualities to which they refer. We reviewed theory and evidence about the extent to which four core criteria for student writing-critical thinking, use of language, structuring, and argument-refer to the outcomes of three types of learning: generic skills learning, a deep approach to learning, and complex learning. The analysis showed that all four of the core criteria describe to some extent properties of text resulting from using skills, but none qualify fully as descriptions of the outcomes of applying generic skills. Most also describe certain aspects of the outcomes of taking a deep approach to learning. Critical thinking and argument correspond most closely to the outcomes of complex learning. At lower levels of performance, use of language and structuring describe the outcomes of applying transferable skills. At higher levels of performance, they describe the outcomes of taking a deep approach to learning. We propose that the type of learning required to meet the core criteria is most usefully and accurately conceptualized as the learning of complex skills, and that this provides a conceptual framework for maximizing the benefits of using assessment criteria as part of teaching. © 2006 Taylor & Francis.

Differences in learning style preference among students of diverse ethnicities, gender, academic placement level, and academic achievement

This investigation studied the differences in learning styles among ethnically diverse secondary science students from a multicultural urban high school. It examined whether there were learning style differences among samples based on ethnicity, gender, academic grouping, and academic achievement. The learning style elements were based on scores of the Dunn, Dunn, and Price Learning Style Inventory (LSI) (1997). The sample (n = 476) consisted of students enrolled in Life Science courses. The analyses of data were made by one way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA). ^ Significant differences were found among students for three of the four groups tested. The largest numbers of differences in learning style element preference were in academic grouping, with eight significant differences showing small or medium effect sizes. There were four significant differences between genders and one significant difference among ethnic groups. Effect size was small. The data analyses showed that individual differences have a much bigger effect than group differences on learning style, and that proportions in learning style element categories reveal more information than means of groups. ^ This study implied the need to increase awareness of differences in learning styles among students and help educators to understand them. Other predictors of learning styles might account for a large amount of the unexplained variation. Overall, this study reinforces the body of existing literature. ^

Effects of service-learning on student attitudes toward academic engagement and civic responsibility

This empirical study explored the impact of service-learning participation on high school students' attitudes toward academic engagement and civic responsibility. This study focused whether a group of high school students who participated in a service-learning project had more positive attitudes toward academic engagement and civic responsibility than their high school peers who did not participate in a service learning project. ^ Data were collected from 67 volunteer students as participants in grades 9–12. A service-learning treatment group of 34 high school students was examined relative to a comparison group of 33 high school students with similar demographic and academic characteristics. The investigator used questionnaires, an oral history/service-learning project, and interviews with the teacher-coordinators of the project to collect the data. The two surveys, one investigating high school students' attitudes about academic engagement, the other investigating high school students' attitudes toward civic responsibility, were administered in a pre-treatment/post-treatment design. There were 90 days between the pre-treatment and post-treatment administrations. A factor analysis of the civic responsibility instrument and multivariate analysis of gain scores were used to compare the means of the total aggregate scores of the treatment and comparison groups. Factor analysis was performed on the academic engagement instrument but it was determined that only the total scores could be used in subsequent analyses. Results were used to determine the efficacy of service-learning as interpreted in student attitudes toward academic engagement and student attitudes toward civic responsibility. ^ The study found no significant difference between the academic engagement and the civic responsibility attitudes of a high school service-learning project group and a high school comparison group with comparable school and similar demographic characteristics. One of the implications for educational practice and policy from the study results is a need to design and implement more powerful studies, studies implemented at many sites rather than just at two sites that were the basis of this study, and studies that investigate the research questions over longer time periods. Although it was not a focus of the study, the investigator concluded that service learning projects such as this might be more effective if they were better aligned with Dewey's principles. ^

Academic Writing & Publication: My Journey of Learning Through the Development of Articles from my Masters Thesis

Abstract: In this essay, I discuss how I turned my masters thesis into three peer reviewed publications and the lessons I learned about academic writing and publication in the process.

How do medium naturalness and personality traits shape academic achievement and perceived learning? An experimental study of face-to-face and synchronous e-learning

This controlled experiment examined how academic achievement and cognitive, emotional and social aspects of perceived learning are affected by the level of medium naturalness (face-to-face, one-way and two-way videoconferencing) and by learners’ personality traits (extroversion–introversion and emotional stability–neuroticism). The Media Naturalness Theory explains the degree of medium naturalness by comparing its characteristics to face-to-face communication, considered to be the most natural form of communication. A total of 76 participants were randomly assigned to three experimental conditions: face-to-face, one-way and two-way videoconferencing. E-learning conditions were conducted through Zoom videoconferencing, which enables natural and spontaneous communication. Findings shed light on the trade-off involved in media naturalness: one-way videoconferencing, the less natural learning condition, enhanced the cognitive aspect of perceived learning but compromised the emotional and social aspects. Regarding the impact of personality, neurotic students tended to enjoy and succeed more in face-to-face learning, whereas emotionally stable students enjoyed and succeeded in all of the learning conditions. Extroverts tended to enjoy more natural learning environments but had lower achievements in these conditions. In accordance with the ‘poor get richer’ principle, introverts enjoyed environments with a low level of medium naturalness. However, they remained focused and had higher achievements in the face-to-face learning.

Cooperation, interaction and learning in local production systems: Evidence in Brazilian firms

In a local production system (LPS), besides external economies, the interaction, cooperation, and learning are indicated by the literature as complementary ways of enhancing the LPS's competitiveness and gains. In Brazil, the greater part of LPSs, mostly composed by small enterprises, displays incipient relationships and low levels of interaction and cooperation among their actors. The size of the participating enterprises itself for specificities that engender organizational constraints, which, in turn, can have a considerable impact on their relationships and learning dynamics. For that reason, it is the purpose of this article to present an analysis of interaction, cooperation, and learning relationships among several types of actors pertaining to an LPS in the farming equipment and machinery sector, bearing in mind the specificities of small enterprises. To this end, the fieldwork carried out in this study aimed at: (i) investigating external and internal knowledge sources conducive to learning and (ii) identifying and analyzing motivating and inhibiting factors related to specificities of small enterprises in order to bring the LPS members closer together and increase their cooperation and interaction. Empirical evidence shows that internal aspects of the enterprises, related to management and infrastructure, can have a strong bearing on their joint actions, interaction and learning processes.