The indirect effect of perceived test importance on test performance via examinee effort is often modeled using importance and effort scores measured "after" test completion, which does not align with their theoretical temporal ordering. These retrospectively measured scores may be influenced by examinees' test performance. To…

Test-taking effort relates to performance on low-stakes tests; thus, researchers and assessment practitioners have investigated what influences students to put forth effort when completing these tests. Using a longitudinal design, we evaluated the often-cited effect of perceived test importance on test-taking effort. More specifically, a 29-item…

Using a sample of 497 college students, we measured test-taking emotions (anger, worry, pride, enjoyment) after the first third, second third, and last third of a low-stakes cognitive test of sociocultural knowledge. We examined the simultaneous change in emotions and whether change in emotions predicted subsequent test-taking effort and test…

Test-taking motivation (TTM) has been associated with test performance in low-stakes testing contexts. However, there have been few studies about TTM in high-stakes testing contexts, and these have contradictory results. Our aim was to explore the relationship between test-taking effort and test performance in a real-life high-stakes testing…

Research investigating methods to influence examinee motivation during low-stakes assessment of student learning outcomes has involved manipulating test session instructions. The impact of instructions is often evaluated using a popular self-report measure of test-taking motivation. However, the impact of these manipulations on the psychometric…

In response to a request from a campus student organization, faculty from three fields came together to develop and teach an integrated interdisciplinary course on water issues and social activism. This course, "Water as Life, Death, and Power," brought together issues from the fields of anthropology, biology and chemistry to explore…

Taking Action Opportunities (TAO) is a curriculum that combines guided reflection, a focus on the local environment, and innovative use of wildlife technology to empower student action toward improving the environment. TAO is experientially based and uses remote cameras as a tool for schoolyard exploration. Through TAO, students engage in research…

The number of adult graduate students continues to increase in America's higher education institutions. The needs of the adult learner are diverse, and it is a challenge to institutions to meet the needs of this increasing student population. Institutions have responded by offering programs of study both on campus and expanded program offerings at…

Describes the process by which one university considered the development of a multicultural student union and the research project that was undertaken to gain information from all campus constituencies concerning the interest in such a union. Reports on student responses gathered in telephone interviews and discusses implications for other…

College students critique their professors' teaching at RateMyProfessors.com, a web page where students anonymously rate their professors on Quality, Easiness, and Sexiness. Using the self-selected data from this public forum, we examine the relations between quality, easiness, and sexiness for 3190 professors at 25 universities. For faculty with…

The ACT Student Opinion Survey (ACTSOS) was administered during spring 2000 to 42 randomly selected classes at South Texas Community College (STCC) and to a national sample of 30,326 students drawn from 130 public colleges. Compared with the national sample, students in the STCC sample: (1) generally were more satisfied with their college…

Adolescent drug use in the United States remains higher than that of any other industrialized country. To explore this problem, demographic and psychosocial variables from a survey of 346 pre- and early adolescents were used to predict membership in clusters of students with varying substance use attitudes and expectancies. Cluster analysis…