No abstract

Among academically talented students, SES and racial group membership predict both college expectations and matriculation, and youth less often attend and complete postsecondary education if their parents did not go to college. For successful adjustment to college, significant adults during high school matter more than they might imagine. Talking to teachers and counselors had strong relationships with social and academic adjustment as well as with positive attitudes for all students. Interestingly, the more participants talked to teachers in high school, the more academically competent they felt in college, and this relationship was especially strong for first-generation students. Such findings suggest that “getting ready” experiences may prepare students to more effectively balance the multiple developmental tasks they face as college students on the threshold of adulthood. This preparation may be especially important for persistence among vulnerable populations, including first-generation students, who spend the least time of any group talking to teachers outside class. Students in low-income, urban communities may be in reasonable proximity to a community, vocational, or 4-year college; students in rural schools may more often see relatively few opportunities for higher education. An academically oriented high school peer group also may prepare students to become socially engaged on the college campus. These preliminary findings are a strong argument for policies and practices that bring all new college students together in personalized social interactions as quickly as possible rather than focusing on groups perceived to be “at risk.”

This study examined how Latina/o undergraduate students' graduate and professional degree aspirations change during college. Using longitudinal data from the Cooperative Institutional Research Program, a multinomial logistic regression analysis was conducted to examine factors associated with aspiring to earn a degree beyond a baccalaureate. Findings show that many students change their initial aspirations and several college experiences, such as higher college GPA and faculty interactions, are associated with Latinas/os' graduate and professional degree aspirations. Resumen Este estudio examinó como estudiantes latinos de pre-grado cambian sus aspiraciones sobre título profesional y postgrado durante su carrera universitaria. Usando información longitudinal del Programa de Investigación de la Cooperativa Institucional, se condujeron análisis de regresión logística multinominal para examinar factores asociados con la aspiración de obtener un postgrado. Los hallazgos demostraron que muchos estudiantes cambian sus aspiraciones iniciales y que varias experiencias universitarias, como un alto promedio universitario e interacciones con profesores, se asocian con aspiraciones de grados profesionales y de postgrado en estudiantes latinos.

In many societies, grandmothers are important caregivers, and grandmaternal investment is often associated with improved grandchild well-being. Here, we present, to our knowledge, the first study to examine grandmaternal brain function. We recruited 50 grandmothers with at least one biological grandchild between 3 and 12 years old. Brain function was measured with functional magnetic resonance imaging as grandmothers viewed pictures of their grandchild, an unknown child, the same-sex parent of the grandchild, and an unknown adult. Grandmothers also completed questionnaires to measure their degree of involvement with and attachment to their grandchild. After controlling for age and familiarity of stimuli, viewing grandchild pictures activated areas involved with emotional empathy (insula and secondary somatosensory cortex) and movement (motor cortex and supplementary motor area). Grandmothers who more strongly activated areas involved with cognitive empathy (temporo-parietal junction and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex) when viewing pictures of the grandchild desired greater involvement in caring for the grandchild. Finally, compared with results from an earlier study of fathers, grandmothers more strongly activated regions involved with emotional empathy (dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, insula and secondary somatosensory cortex), and motivation (nucleus accumbens, ventral pallidum and caudate nucleus). All in all, our findings suggest that emotional empathy may be a key component of grandmaternal responses to their grandchildren.

Using a quasi-experimental research design this study examined whether the use of a flipped classroom teaching method for undergraduate quantitative research methods had an impact on undergraduate students’ academic achievement within the course as measured by their course assignments, quizzes, exams, and final paper. Findings suggest that utilizing a flipped classroom teaching design impacted Students of Color, as they performed better than their White peers on their final papers.