The authors examined intensely engaging (i.e., flow) experiences in the context of college coursework to gain a better understanding of their antecedents and outcomes. College students (N=137) completed a Web-based survey that assessed (a) flow experiences; (b) academic work characteristics including role clarity, professor support for autonomy, and feedback; and (c) psychological and physical health. The authors found that flow completely mediated the relation between academic work characteristics and psychological well-being. They also found that flow had an indirect effect through psychological well-being on physical health. These findings suggest restructuring academic work to be clear and autonomous and giving ample feedback opportunities to facilitate intense student engagement and mental and physical wellness.

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Research clearly establishes the value of online education to foster students’ cognitive understanding of course material. However, engagement in the learning experience requires more than mere acquisition of new knowledge; to be fully engaged in the learning process, students must also connect with their peers and instructor in a meaningful way. The purpose of this study is to examine the value of instructor-personalized audio lectures as means of fostering students’ engagement with course content and the online learning experience. Qualitative data on the student experience found that instructor-personalized audio lectures enhanced students’ perceptions of value and engagement; quantitative data using a standardized engagement measure revealed no significant differences. Students’ qualitative feedback about their online learning experience indicated that instructor-personalized audio lectures fostered greater student-instructor connections and significantly impacted the likelihood of students’ engaging with course material. Recognizing the value of student engagement for ongoing satisfaction and retention in online learning programs, findings suggest that the creation of personalized audio lectures provides an efficient and effective means for faculty to positively impact students’ online learning experience.

Our purpose was to identity the unique contribution, relative importance, and utility of positive worker states. Using Luthans et al.'s (2007) five positive organizational behavior criteria, a variety of positive worker states were reviewed and then empirically tested to establish if they met these criteria. Data were collected from 724 restaurant employees. Positive worker states included: job involvement, perceived organizational support, engagement, and vigor. Criteria were self-reported performance, customer service, turnover intention, satisfaction, and quality of life. Our review indicated consistency between predictor adequacy of meeting the criteria and their empirical relationship with key outcomes. This research found the positive worker states to be independent constructs that had differential effects depending on the focused outcome. Regression and relative weights analyses showed involvement was a weak predictor of outcomes, while perceived organizational support was the most consistent predictor. Vigor was most useful when predicting job performance. Quality of life was poorly explained.

In recent years, online teaching has become extremely popular. Most institutions of higher learning are offering online courses in almost every field of study. Teaching any course online is challenging, but teaching quantitative courses, such as operations management, management science, statistics, and others, have added a more challenging dimension to online teaching. Publishers have been assisting professors of quantitative methods courses by developing various teaching and evaluation tools. This study explores one such publisher’s tool, Quiz Me Mastery Points, of Pearson’s MyOmLab. The performance of students on their examinations and the Mastery Points they earned through the Quiz Me feature were compared, and it was determined that there was a significant correlation between the two.