Carolyn Rude-Parkins

Student Employment and Higher Education: Empiricism and Contradiction

College student employment has been increasing steadily for at least four decades. At present, approximately 80% of all college students are employed while completing their undergraduate education. Even among students under the age of 24 at 4-year colleges, more than 50% are employed during the school year. Although some general trends are suggested by empirical research completed to date, studies that evaluate student employment and higher education are at times inconsistent and even contradictory. Despite the high prevalence of student employment, no theoretical models have been developed to explain the relationship between employment and student outcomes. This article briefly reviews the student employment–higher education empirical literature. Possible reasons for inconsistencies are suggested, including challenges posed by methodological issues and the absence of theoretical conceptualization. Some concluding suggestions are offered for addressing these empirical challenges.

Academic Performance, Age, Gender, and Ethnicity in Online Courses Delivered by Two-Year Colleges

This study investigated the effects the demographic variables age, gender, and ethnicity and their interactions had on academic performance in online courses delivered by public two-year colleges in Kentucky. The study controlled for previous academic performance measured by cumulative grade point average (GPA). The study used a random sample (N = 320) of all students who had enrolled in at least one online course delivered by the institutions of the Kentucky Community and Technical College System in the spring 2008 semester. A linear hierarchical multiple regression acting as ANCOVA served as the main analysis, with the order entry as follows: cumulative GPA; independent variables (age, gender, ethnicity); interaction vectors; and product vectors. Final course grade served as the dependent variable. The results of the analysis indicated that only cumulative GPA was a significant predictor, explaining approximately 40% of the variance of the final grade. Although differences in final grades were present among the variables age and ethnicity, these differences disappeared when controlling for cumulative GPA. Significance of the results and recommendations for future research are discussed.

Collaborative Problem-Solving in Virtual Environments: Effect of Social Interaction, Social Presence, and Sociability on Critical Thinking

New and increasingly complex online technologies are attractive to course developers, but do they add value for students and teachers in terms of deeper social connection and increased collaborative learning? This exploratory study examines students’ perceptions of social presence, sociability, and social interaction related to critical thinking in groups in three different virtual environments (e.g., text chat, online audio conference, and avatar-based interaction). The findings suggest that perceptions of user difficulty and the nature of the collaborative activity influence learner perceptions in critical thinking group tasks in virtual environments, while the type of virtual environment has less effect. Limitations and critiques are discussed.