Policy changes in the higher education landscape have given way to increased interest in the way students perceive engagement in UK higher education. This paper examines whether we can reliably distinguish between institutions and disciplines, and what key student and institutional variables are a predictor of engagement of undergraduate students.…

The purpose of this study was to examine appreciative attitudes toward Jews--a historically marginalized and targeted worldview identity group in the context of American higher education--among non-Jewish undergraduates. Drawing from a sample of 13,489 students across 52 institutions and using a multilevel modeling approach, we found that…

Theory and research using a social-information processing framework indicate that reward-focused (proactive) aggression has different social consequences than defense-focused (reactive) aggression. Students use norms that identify expected and socially approved behaviors as guides to their own actions. Differences in social-cognitive processing…

The purpose of this study is to examine the extent to which faculty culture pertaining to student-centered pedagogy, student-faculty interactions, and faculty goals of enhancing spirituality is associated with spirituality in college students. While individual interactions with faculty have been the focus of spirituality research in recent years,…

Peer mentoring programs frequently are implemented on college campuses to enhance first-year college student retention; however, few studies have examined characteristics of peer mentors that are associated with more supportive mentor-mentee relationships, leaving college personnel with a limited understanding of how to improve these vital…

The Reading and Me Survey (R&MS) measures reading self-perceptions and enjoyment of reading of intermediate elementary students and parallels the Math & Me Survey (M&MS). We examined its psychometric properties through content validation, exploratory factor analysis (EFA), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and reliability and…

The quality of teachers is now a central focus of policy and research. In spite of this focus, two key gaps exist, and this dissertation helps to fill them: First, mediation models involving the study of the effects of teaching are rare; instead, most current investigations of teachers focus primarily on the effects of teachers, with less…

Although art therapy has been used for over 100 years as an adjunctive treatment method for physical and mental health disorders, the research findings regarding the efficacy of this approach have been mixed and inconclusive. Reviews of the current literature on the efficacy of art therapy have noted the field lacks well-controlled studies.…

This study examines the prevalence, contexts, and demographic correlates of monotonic response patterns (MRPs) in online student evaluations. Results of two-level hierarchical generalized linear models show evidence of careless monotonic responses to a survey administered to students enrolled in a university-level foreign language course in the…

Bullying is the most common form of school violence and is associated with a range of negative outcomes, including traumatic responses. This study used hierarchical linear modeling to examine the multilevel moderating effects of school climate and school level (i.e., elementary, middle, and high schools) on the association between bullying…

The use of multiple informants is common in assessments that rely on the judgments of others. However, ratings obtained from different informants often vary as a function of their perspectives and roles in relation to the target of measurement, and causes unrelated to the trait being measured. We illustrate the usefulness of a latent variable…

In spite of considerable evidence of the effectiveness of active learning and other contemporary teaching methods, barriers to adoption of those methods, such as possible student resistance, continue to exist. This study addresses student resistance by analyzing data from 1,051 students who completed our Student Response to Instructional Practices…

Based on 13,776 student respondents to the Campus Religious and Spiritual Climate Survey (CRSCS) across three academic years at 52 colleges and universities, this study examined how aspects of the campus climate for religious and spiritual diversity related to student perceptions of transformational learning in college. Perceived transformational…

Latent class analysis was used to examine whether patterns of bystander responses varied as a function of both student- and school-level characteristics. Data from 18,863 high school students from 58 schools who "ever witnessed bullying" were used to identify five latent classes of bystander behavior. Three of the classes identified…

Objectives: The objectives of this study were to: (1) examine changes in stress during first semester among freshmen undergraduates and (2) identify predictors of stress (coping strategies, emotional states, and quality of sleep). Participants: One hundred ninety-seven freshmen students were recruited for a 10-week study during first quarter…