Roberta V. Nata (Editor)

Series: Progress in Education
BISAC: EDU000000

In the opening chapter of Progress in Education. Volume 51, the authors present a meta-analysis indicating that the prevalence of addiction to new technologies among Iranian youths are increasing, focusing on the epidemiology of internet addiction. The results of this study may be used by developing countries to acquaint parents, policy makers, administrators of high schools and universities, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Higher Education, and all educational and cultural planners. The authors maintain that the spread of new communicational technologies has had both positive and negative effects on our lives.

Next, this collection addresses the degree to which First-Time in College (FTIC) community college students and non-FTIC community college students differed in their quality of on-campus and off-campus relationships. Inferential statistical analyses of responses to a national survey revealed the presence of statistically significant differences between these two groups of students in all dependent variables. Implications and recommendations for future research are provided.

The following study is an attempt to investigate the relationship between foreign language motivation and anxiety among third and fourth year students attending the secondary vocational-technical Complex of Catering and Hotel Industry Schools in Wisła, Poland. The research and discourse also take into consideration such essential factors as English language proficiency, grades and frequency of extracurricular contact with English.

The authors later suggest that geology plays an important and essential role in education from an economic point of view, in the relationship between science and society and, therefore, should be present in the school syllabus. In geology teaching, learning can become more complex outside its natural environment, thus fieldwork practical activities are suggested by the curricular guidelines of different geoscience disciplinary areas and their advantages are highlighted in the literature.

Focusing on several Russian undergraduate and graduate classes of different national origins, one chapter discusses the issue of college students’ search for internationalized and diversified self-improvement in higher education. In addition, the discussion also ties in some general practices of English in Russian academia in comparison with the similar cases in USA, South Korea and China.

A multiyear empirical investigation is presented which analyzed the degree to which economic status was related to the postsecondary enrollment of Texas public high school graduates at Texas 2-year public colleges and at 4-year public universities. Specifically analyzed were the enrollment percentages of students in poverty and students who were not poor for three academic years for Texas public high school graduates.

Reflection is proposed as a skill that must be taught to preservice teachers in their education programs, and it should not be assumed that preservice teachers know how to reflect on their teaching or that they see the value in reflection. Thus, a study explores how preservice teachers perceive the value of reflection with vlogs in their reflective communication skills.

In the final study, this book examines the effectiveness of conducting an in-class assessment of interpersonal functioning in a graduate psychology class for masters-level counseling psychology students. Results indicate that conducting an in-class interpersonal assessment increased students’ knowledge of interpersonal theory and interpersonal methods of assessment. These findings have implications for the teaching of interpersonal assessment as well as for the practice of clinical assessment in group settings.