This study explored second year undergraduates' academic motivators and blockers at multiple ecological system levels. A total of 47 second year undergraduate students from Engineering, Nursing and ...Psychology in an Australian city university took part in participant-led interviews regarding their academic experience beyond their foundational semester. Using an ecological system approach as the overarching theoretical framework, Tinto's model of student retention/persistence and Self-Determination Theory (SDT) were merged within this framework to identify potential motivators and blockers across individual, microsystem, mesosystem and macrosystem levels. Results revealed that academic motivators and blockers existed at multiple ecological levels and wielded direct as well as indirect impacts on student persistence. Cohort and context-specific challenges were also identified and this demonstrated the need to better understand the contributions of an ecological approach to student persistence experience. Author abstract
Brilliant plumage is typical of male birds, reflecting differential enhancement of male traits when females are the limiting sex. Brighter females are thought to evolve exclusively in response to sex ...role reversal. The striking reversed plumage dichromatism of Eclectus roratus parrots does not fit this pattern. We quantify plumage color in this species and show that very different selection pressures are acting on males and females. Male plumage reflects a compromise between the conflicting requirements for camouflage from predators while foraging and conspicuousness during display. Females are liberated from the need for camouflage but compete for rare nest hollows.
In this ambitious issue, the reader is treated to an eclectic array of approaches to a pressing topic-How should educators consider the diversity of immigrant student experiences? With 1 in 4 ...students in classrooms coming from an immigrant-headed family, how should teachers be thinking about that student experience? Given that very few teachers have been exposed to teacher education programs that address these students and given their diversity of their experiences, what should they be considering? In this commentary, I discuss the rich content of the articles in this issue and make suggestions for way to address A. Lynn Goodwin's (2002) challenge for teacher education to "do the right thing" (p. 156) for the fastest growing sector of our student population.
Higher rates of school switching by students contribute to achievement disparities and are typically theorized as driven by attributes of individual pupils or families. In contrast the ...neoclassical-economic account postulates that switching is necessary for competition among schools. We argue that both frames fail to capture social-referential and institutional comparisons that drive student mobility, hypothesizing that pupil mobility stems from the (a) student's time in school and grade; (b) student's race, class, and achievement relative to peers; (c) quality of schooling relative to nearby alternatives; and (4) proximity, abundance, and diversity of local school options. Propositions are tested with discrete-time hazard models using data from Los Angeles, including 6.5 million observations. We find the student's position relative to peers, relative school quality, and proximity to local alternatives contribute significantly to the likelihood of switching schools, beyond the effects of individual pupil or family attributes. Implications for understanding "choice" as a social-referential process within diverse organizational fields like urban education markets are discussed.
Land use/cover and vegetation patterns are influenced by many ecological factors. However, the effect of various factors on different classification systems and different levels of the same system is ...unclear. We conducted a redundancy analysis with 10 landscape metrics and ecological factors in four periods (1986–2005/2007, 1991–2005/2007, 1996–2005/2007, 2001–2005/2007) to explore their effects on the land use/cover system, vegetation group and vegetation type, and formation and subformation levels of the vegetation classification system in the Jing-Jin-Ji region. Soil, temperature and precipitation from 1986–2005, 1991–2005, and 2001–2005 were the important causal factors, and anthropogenic disturbance and atmospheric factors in 1996–2005 were causal factors at the land use/cover level. The total explained variance from 1996–2005 and 2001–2005 was higher than that from 1986–2005 and 1991–2005 at the land use/cover level. Causal factors and the variance explained by causal factors at the vegetation group, vegetation type, and formation and subformation levels were similar but different in the land use/cover system. Geography, soil and anthropogenic disturbance were the most important causal factors at the three vegetation levels, and the total explained variance from 2001–2007 was higher than that from 1986–2007, 1991–2007, and 1996–2007 at the three vegetation levels. In environmental research, natural resource management and urban or rural planning, geographic factors should be considered at the vegetation group, vegetation type and formation and subformation levels while atmospheric and temperature factors should be considered at the land use/cover level.
Mental health outcomes in refugee youth are diverse, ranging from prolonged difficulties to resiliency. Refugee communities rarely access services, even for those youth who are in need. Barriers ...include (a) distrust of authority and/or systems, (b) stigma of mental health services, (c) linguistic and cultural barriers, and (d) primacy and prioritization of resettlement stressors. Mental health promotion among refugee youth requires an integrated response to these barriers. This article includes a description of how the previously mentioned barriers may prevent refugee youth from receiving mental health services; approaches to addressing them; and a detailed description of Supporting the Health of Immigrant Families and Adolescents (Project SHIFA), a program developed in collaboration with the Somali community in Boston, Massachusetts.
Bromeliads are important epiphytes due to their abundance in the Neotropical region and morphological complexity. Their compact and imbricated leaf bases form water storage cisterns that promote ...important resources for colonization by several prokaryotic and eukaryotic microorganisms. Due to the lack of knowledge about these environments, the objective of the study was to investigate which physical-chemical and ecological parameters exert effects on the biological richness present in the cisterns of
Vriesea platynema
. The study was carried out in the Center for Research and Nature Conservation (CPCN – Pró-Mata), in the Serra Geral plateau, northeastern Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Active searches were performed for 10 trees with bromeliads fixed at two heights (< 1.5 m and > 2.5 m). For each bromeliad individual, the height in relation to the ground, the diameter and depth of the central cistern, water temperature, number of lateral cisterns and number of adjacent bromeliads, were measured. A total of 23 taxa were identified in the phytotelmata of
V. platynema
, with
Philodina
,
Lambornella
,
Paramecium
,
Tetrahymena
and Diptera larvae being the most representative groups. The richness of organisms in the phytotelmata presented a positive correlation with water temperature (p = 0.01), and the number of adjacent bromeliads (p = 0.05), indicating that physicochemical and ecological factors could influence the richness of bromeliad biota.
This paper analyses the contribution made by the locomotive remanufacturing to supporting sustainable development. A case study approach is used to analyse the practice of remanufacturing in the ...centre of locomotive maintenance, repair and overhaul situated in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. The practice of locomotive remanufacturing contributes to economic development in at least three ways: economically, socially and ecologically. The challenges of locomotive remanufacturing are also presented. This paper offers originality and contributes to knowledge in the sense that it is the first time that locomotive remanufacturing has been analysed from a macro perspective. Future research recommendations are presented at the end of the paper.
Objective: Suicidal members of the U.S. military often fail to disclose their suicidal urges and behaviors. Military suicide prevention efforts may therefore be enhanced if they also target less ...stigmatized psychosocial factors that may decrease risk of suicidality. In keeping with Bronfenbrenner's (1977, 1994) model, this study simultaneously examined 4 ecological levels (i.e., individual, family, workplace, and community) of factors variously associated with increased or decreased risk for suicidal ideation. Method: Active-duty U.S. Air Force members (N = 52,780; 79.3% male; 79.2% non-Hispanic White; mean age = 31.78 years, SD = 7.38) completed the 2006 Community Assessment survey (a biennial, anonymous survey conducted at 82 U.S. Air Force bases worldwide), including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (2008) 5-item measure of past-year suicidality along with scales assessing an array of potential predictors. Results: The 1-year rate of suicidal ideation, defined as (a) more than rarely thinking about suicide or (b) ever seriously considering suicide, was approximately 4%. In multivariate models, for men and women, individual- (depressive symptoms and alcohol problems), family- (relationship satisfaction and intimate partner victimization), workplace- (hours worked), and community-level (social support) variables were retained in the final model. However, some sex differences in retained predictors were noted (e.g., men: dissatisfaction with the U.S. Air Force way of life; women: workplace relationship satisfaction and financial stressors). Conclusions: Addressing depressive symptoms and alcohol use, facilitating healthy relationship functioning, and increasing job satisfaction and social support may aid military suicide prevention efforts. These findings illustrate the importance of attending to multiple levels of potential influence when designing integrated suicide prevention and intervention programs.
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CEKLJ, FFLJ, NUK, ODKLJ, PEFLJ
Family educational involvement has been identified as a particularly beneficial practice for the achievement and behavioral outcomes of all students, including ethnic-minority students from families ...who have low levels of income, education, and English language proficiency. Despite the associated benefits, however, not all families are involved in their child's education and the explanation for differing involvement patterns has not been fully explored. The author examines precursors to parent educational involvement with an emphasis on immigrant families who may face more involvement barriers using the immigrant sample from the Child Development Supplement of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (N = 189). Results provide limited support for the Hoover-Dempsey and Sandler theoretical model for family involvement; self-efficacy and perceived opportunities for involvement predicted immigrant families' home-based involvement. No antecedents, however, predicted school-based involvement. In addition, results suggest expanding this model to include social capital, which significantly predicted immigrant families' home-based involvement activities.
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