Motivated by potential financial savings, four-day school weeks have proliferated across the United States in recent years, reaching public schools in 25 states as of 2018. The consequences of the four-day school week for students, schools, and communities are largely unknown. This paper uses district-level panel data from Oklahoma and a difference-in-differences research design to examine the causal effect of the four-day schedule on school district finance and academic achievement. Results indicate that four-day weeks decrease districts’ federal revenues and their non-instructional and support services expenditures. Decreases are concentrated specifically in operations and maintenance, food services, and transportation expenditures and amount to approximately 2.03% of the average four-day district’s budget. I find no detectable effect of the four-day week on academic achievement.

Background In recent years, technological innovation and entrepreneurship have been emphasized in engineering education. There is a need to better understand which individual‐ and contextual‐level factors are related to engineering students' entrepreneurial intentions. Purpose/Hypothesis This study explores individual and contextual predictors of entrepreneurial intent among undergraduate women and men in engineering and business majors. Entrepreneurial intent is defined as the personal importance that students ascribe to starting a new business or organization. Design/Method The participants included 518 engineering and 471 business undergraduates from 51 U.S. colleges and universities. We examined relationships first by discipline and then by gender in each discipline using regression models with interaction terms. Results Innovation orientation and participation in entrepreneurship activities tied to intent more strongly for engineering students than for business students; in contrast, being at a research institution and selection of novel goals tied to intent more strongly for business students than for their engineering peers. Among engineering students only, being able to switch gears and apply alternative means for reaching one's goal in the face of setbacks was positively related with women's entrepreneurial intent but not with men's. Conclusions Entrepreneurial intent is a function of individual‐level characteristics and academic and social contexts, with some degree of discipline‐specific effects. Diversifying the community of aspiring engineering entrepreneurs is a critical issue that merits attention by the engineering education community.

Introduction Purpose in life is associated with positive outcomes following adversity, but the mechanisms of this relationship are unclear. In this repeated measures, mixed‐methods study, we examined the relationship of purpose to coping with adversity among young adolescents. Methods A sample of 1357 adolescents completed a survey about purpose, negative life events, and positive reframing coping four times at six month intervals. A sub‐sample of 91 survey respondents participated in an interview. Surveys were analyzed using fixed‐effects and mixed‐effects modeling to test the relationship between purpose and coping over time. Interviews were analyzed for purpose, adversity, and coping to understand this relationship as perceived by the participant. Results Survey results indicate that purpose and positive reframing coping are related and change together over time. Interview results suggest that purpose can be a response to negative experiences. Conclusions There are likely underlying factors or processes driving the relationship between purpose and positive reframing coping. Some of the potential underlying factors and processes are discussed.

Motivated by potential financial savings, 4-day school weeks have proliferated across the United States in recent years, reaching public schools in 24 states as of 2019. The consequences of the 4-day school week for students, schools, and communities are largely unknown. This article uses district-level panel data from Oklahoma and a difference-in-differences research design to examine the causal effect of the 4-day schedule on school district finance and academic achievement. Results indicate that 4-day weeks decrease districts’ federal revenues and their noninstructional and support services expenditures. Decreases are concentrated specifically in operations, transportation, and food services expenditures and amount to approximately 2.03% of the average 4-day district’s budget. There is no detectable effect of the 4-day week on academic achievement.

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