Abstract:As recent graduates of a women's-only leadership development program in higher education in the United States, we used autoethnography as a research methodology to provide critical insight into effective women's leadership programming and evaluation. The potential of this methodology as both a learning process and product helped elucidate two key findings:(1) to effectively develop women leaders, work must be done at the personal, interpersonal, and organizational levels, as these levels are interrelated and interdependent; and (2) women's multiple identities must be engaged. Therefore, relationship-building should be a central learning outcome and facilitated through program curricula, pedagogical methods, and evaluation. Including autoethnography as a program evaluation methodology fills a gap in the literature on leadership development, and supports our goal of making meaning of our personal experiences in order to enhance women's leadership development.

These results support the effectiveness of a pedometer intervention to increase walking in college students. Health benefits other than weight management should be emphasized to maximize the effects for all students.

Overall, results were positive and warrant more comprehensive testing.

This study examines the impact of changing the tone of a traditional syllabus to make it more learner-centered. The researchers examined a required wellness course that serves over 8,000 students per year at a large, four-year public university in the southern United States. Concerns about student progression through programs and graduation rates had prompted a number of faculty to look into ways to increase these numbers. The investigators changed the tone of the syllabus to determine if a more learner-centered document would increase the chances of students interacting with the syllabus and, in turn, increase the success rates in the course. The results indicated that few students spent sufficient time reading the syllabus to take in all the information regardless of the tone used within the document, so the tone, by itself, did not impact student success.

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