The Kept-Up Academic Librarian

Study Finds That Student Diversity Improves The Quality Of Education

A racially diverse law student body provides educational benefits for students, their institution and society, according to a 10-year multidisciplinary research study conducted by four professors, including two faculty members at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Over a decade, the researchers examined links of race (and other factors) with educational diversity, tracking law students from their enrollment in law school through graduation. The study used national data from more than 6,500 incoming law students attending a random representative sample of 50 American Bar Association-approved U.S. law schools. The researchers found that many observed racial differences among students contribute to learning because differences foster richer interactions and positive educational outcomes. Read more at:
http://www.aconews.com/news/local/article_ca5723e2-e41a-11e1-9ae0-0019bb2963f4.html

Children With High Attention Capacity More Likely To Graduate College

If you want your child to graduate from university and or college you may want to pay attention to your child’s ability to focus, stay on task and be persistent. According to a recently published online study in Early Childhood Research Quarterly,a child’s ability to pay attention, be persistent and remember instructions at age four is a strong predictor of his or her likelihood of completing university, as well as his or her reading and math skills at age 21. Attentiveness and persistence was a stronger predictor for college completion than a child’s reading or math scores at age 7 and age 21. Read more at:
http://www.thestar.com/living/article/1238793--kids-who-pay-attention-persist-at-age-4-more-likely-to-complete-university

Scholars Prefer Buffy Over Other Pop Topics

Last week in Slate, Tom Shone examined the academic obsession with the Alien quadrilogy, a movie franchise that has been the subject of dozens of scholarly articles. Shone listed 24 notable Alien studies at the end of his essay. Which got us thinking: How many more papers on the Alien movies are there? And how does the Alien franchise stack up against other films and TV shows that generate a lot of academic attention? In addition to scouring the Internet to fill out Shone’s Alienbibliography, we also sought out academic writing on The Simpsons, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Wire, and The Matrix trilogy—pop culture favorites known to have provided plenty of PhD fodder over the last couple decades. Read more at:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2012/06/11/pop_culture_studies_why_do_academics_study_buffy_the_vampire_slayer_more_than_the_wire_the_matrix_alien_and_the_simpsons_.html

Parental Support For College Students Leads To More Partying

College students who get significant financial support from parents might graduate faster, but they party more, work less and have a weaker vision of their future than their less-subsidized peers. Researchers at Brigham Young University conducted in-depth surveys of 402 undergraduates and their parents, documenting how much support parents were providing and correlating that with how much time the kids spent working or partying, whether they had firm career goals and whether they felt like adults. In their study published in the Journal of Adult Development, the scholars conclude that a free ride isn’t necessarily the best option. Read more at:
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/53931900-78/parents-students-support-college.html.csp

When College Students Text In Class They Learn Less

A university professor in Pennsylvania has completed a study and written a soon-to-be-published paper on the effects of text messaging by college students during class.The results? Students who send and receive texts during class have a hard time paying attention to lectures and risk not learning as much as they would if they weren’t texting and were paying attention. Read more at:
http://www.mlive.com/news/jackson/index.ssf/2012/04/new_study_shows_college_studen.html

Testing Whether March Madness Success Translates To A Better University

Sports boosters are fond of saying that success in intercollegiate sports programs benefits aspiring colleges and universities by raising the profile of the schools, which, in turn, increases the number of students who apply and the funding available to support high-quality academic programs. As a result, the boosters say, schools can select higher quality students and can hire better faculty. As we approach the peak of “March Madness,” we thought it would be interesting to see if the tournament results to date provide evidence to support the conjectures about expenditures, athletic success and institutional quality. Read more at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/college-inc/post/does-march-madness-success-boost-collegiate-rankings/2012/03/31/gIQA0LOEnS_blog.html?wprss=rss_college-inc%3f

Colleges May Create A Cultural Mismatch Problem With First-Generation Students

Colleges that urge first-generation students to be more independent — to express themselves, find their passions, and realize their individual potential — may be putting some of those students at an academic disadvantage. Researchers call it a “cultural mismatch.” The seemingly positive values of empowering oneself and influencing the world — qualities that are often touted at universities — contradict the values of students with working-class backgrounds. When students find themselves in a college that doesn’t reflect their interdependent values. Read more at:
http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/12/independence-first-generation/?partner=rss&emc=rss

Retention Improves When Students Get Additional Financial Support

As the University of Colorado and other colleges across the country aim to increase the retention rates of students, a new study finds that targeting need-based scholarships could help undergraduates earn degrees. Targeting supplemental financial aid to students receiving Pell Grants -- federal funding available for the most financially needy students -- helped improve retention rates by more than 14 percent at colleges in Louisiana, according to the American Institutes for Research and Noel-Levitz, a consulting group. The national study examined financial aid policies at four-year colleges and found that when Pell Grants are paired with state grants that assist nontraditional and low- to moderate-income students afford college -- student retention rates improve by 14 percent compared with students receiving Pell Grants alone. Read more at:
http://www.dailycamera.com/cu-news/ci_19464361

Study Reports That Online College Students Are More Likely To Cheat On Exams

In a study involving only online students where exams were not proctored, nearly 73 percent of the students surveyed admitted to cheating on at least one of the 14 quizzes they took over the course of a semester. The cheaters anonymously admitted that they consulted textbooks or class notes during the unmonitored test. That compares with self-reported cheating at a rate of about 56 percent for students in a course that blended online and classroom learning. The results overwhelmingly show that students have less fear of being caught and will cheat more in an online environment, honor code or not, the researchers said. Read more at:
http://www.dailycamera.com/cu-news/ci_19403241

Family Income Is A Big Predictor Of College Success

 It's getting more difficult for low-income students to climb the economic ladder as the college graduation gap between the rich and poor grows. Some 54% of students from wealthy families obtained bachelor's degrees, but only 9% of low-income students got college diplomas. Part of the reason is because more students from households earning at least $87,000 annually are going onto higher education. But children from families making less than $26,000 have not made the same advances. Read more at:
http://money.cnn.com/2011/11/21/news/economy/income_college/index.htm