Docentes Universitários: Expectativas acerca da Aposentadoria / Teachers College: Expectations about Retirement

Objetivou-se conhecer as expectativas de docentes universitários em transição à aposentadoria acerca deste processo. Estudo descritivo com abordagem qualitativa, realizado com vinte docentes universitários. Para coleta de dados foi utilizado um roteiro de entrevista semiestrurado. Os dados foram processados e analisados através da análise de conteúdo. Diante de todas as constatações advindas desta pesquisa, é possível afirmar que o modo como cada docente enxerga a aposentadoria está intrinsecamente conexo ao modo como vive a sua própria vida, no que tange aos seus princípios e valores e as suas prioridades, tanto no aspecto profissional como no pessoal.

College Expectations Promote College Attendance: Evidence From a Quasiexperimental Sibling Study

When adolescents are asked how likely they think it is that they will go to college, does their answer influence what they will actually do? Typically, it is difficult to determine whether college expectations promote academic achievement or just reflect a reasonable forecast of what is likely to happen to them. We used a sample of siblings from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health ( N = 1,766) to test whether associations between college expectations and educational attainment remained after accounting for unobserved family factors that may shape both educational expectations and attainment. Compared with their siblings, adolescents with higher college expectations were also 43% more likely to attend college, even when analyses controlled for grades and IQ. The effect of college expectations on college attendance was strongest among youths living in higher-socioeconomic-status families.

Track Placement and the Motivational Predictors of Math Course Enrollment

Background Virtually all high schools offer a range of courses to allow students to enroll in four years of high school mathematics. However, only two thirds of U.S. high school graduates took mathematics courses each school year. Purpose/Research Question This study addresses three research questions: First, how do students’ math course enrollment and motivational beliefs (i.e., self-efficacy in math, math utility, interest in math, and college expectations) differ by math track? Second, what is the relationship between students’ motivational beliefs and their decision to take four years of math? Third, to what extent does this relationship vary by math track and whether a student passes or fails a math course? Much of the relevant prior literature approaches these relations primarily from an individualistic psychological perspective, viewing motivation as a student-level attribute that similarly effects students’ decision-making process. By contrast, our analyses take a more contextual approach, focusing particular attention on the ways in which students’ math track placements shape their academic approaches and moderate the link between motivation and course-taking. Research Design This study uses secondary restricted-access data from the nationally representative Education Longitudinal Study (ELS: 2002). Students were surveyed and tested in mathematics during the base year (2002). In the follow-up (2004) year, data collectors requested academic transcripts for all participants along with follow-up student surveys and an additional math exam. Findings Our results coincide with previous motivation research that shows that students opt to take additional math courses when they are interested in math, consider themselves skillful in math, and have high college expectations. But the motivational predictors of math course enrollment vary with students’ initial math placement. For above-track students, interest in math is the strongest indicator that they will take four years of math, followed by self-efficacy in mathematics and college expectations, respectively. In contrast, for both low-track and on-track students, the strongest indicator of taking four years of math is college expectations. Conclusions Our study focused on students’ motivation and course enrollment, but this does not diminish the importance of tracking, curricular rigor, and teacher pedagogy. This study provides an additional way to improve inequities in math course enrollment, which is by making explicit recommendations for enhancing students’ motivation. Understanding which particular beliefs have the greatest influence on specific student groups allows educators to appropriately allocate limited resources and increase math course enrollment. This would likely be more effective than a one-size-fits-all approach.

Social Capital and College-Going Culture in High Schools: the Effects of College Expectations and College Talk on Students' Postsecondary Attendance

Using the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002, we examined the probability of students attending college by taking into account their 10th- and 12th-grade exposure to college expectations from and college-related interactions with school staff. Our results suggest that college expectations and college-related interactions with their school counselors, teachers, and coaches had a modest impact on students' odds of enrolling in college, considering the large impact of taking advanced courses and completing college admissions tests.