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AbstractStrategies to mitigate climate change often center on clean technologies such as electric vehicles and solar panels, while the mitigation potential of a quality educational experience is rarely discussed. In this paper, we investigate the long-term impact that an intensive one-year university course had on individual carbon emissions by surveying students at least five years after having taken the course. A majority of course graduates reported pro-environmental decisions (i.e., type of car to buy, food choices) that can be attributed to experiences gained in the course. Furthermore, our carbon footprint analysis demonstrates that for the average course graduate, these decisions reduced their individual carbon emissions by 2.86 tons of CO2 per year. Focus group interviews identify that course graduates have developed a strong personal connection to climate change solutions, and this is realized in their daily behaviors and through their professional careers. The paper discusses in more detail the specific components of the course that are believed to be most impactful, and it shares preliminary outcomes from similar curriculum designs that are being used with K-12 students. Our analysis also demonstrates that if similar education programs were applied at scale, the potential reductions in carbon emissions would be of similar magnitude to other large-scale mitigation strategies such as rooftop solar or electric vehicles.

This study examines the impact of the Mississippi Alcohol Safety Education Program (MASEP), a court-mandated intervention program, on 3-year recidivism rates among first-time DUI offenders (i.e. those convicted of a first offense for driving under the influence of alcohol or another drug). It also examines whether a new version of the curriculum that incorporates activities to enhance motivation for change further ameliorates recidivism. Cox proportional hazard regression models are used to compare recidivism rates among DUI offenders who completed MASEP with those who did not complete or who failed to enroll in the program. Recidivism rates were also compared for MASEP participants across time periods during which curriculum revisions were introduced. The hazard of recidivism was lower for individuals who completed the program than for individuals who did not complete or did not enroll in the program. Recidivism rates were further reduced following the introduction of curriculum revisions. Attendance of court-mandated remedial intervention programs lower subsequent DUI arrests and program content is associated with lower rates.

As a way to support teachers’ professional development activities and build communities of practice for teachers, education researchers and practitioners have put considerable effort into building an online learning community for K–12 teachers to create a venue to facilitate teachers’ joint knowledge construction. However, a substantial number of such online communities have failed due to lack of participation of members. Therefore, it is critical to understand how to design a sustainable community that fulfills members’ needs and elicits active participation of members. In this literature review, we adopted a sociological framework to investigate how to create a sustainable online community. This framework suggests that the sustainability of a community comes from individual members’ three types of commitments: instrumental, affective, and moral commitments. Such commitments are results of members’ cognitive, cathectic, and evaluative processes and lead to membership retainment, cohesive relationships, and socially regulated participation. Using this framework, we conducted a systematic literature review on online teacher community articles published from 1990 to 2018. Our findings provide insights on factors associated with teacher members’ instrumental, affective, and moral commitment to an online community. Based on these findings, we further provide design suggestions to build a sustainable community for teachers.

This study evaluated the social problem solving skills of adolescents with histories of prenatal alcohol exposure. Adolescents (28 alcohol-exposed, 15 controls) completed a standardized questionnaire of social problem solving, and caregivers completed a parent-report measure of executive functioning. Both questionnaires were mailed to families, and caregivers were asked to recruit a non-exposed control. Results suggest that alcohol-exposed adolescents have substantial impairments in their abilities to solve problems in their everyday life, even in the absence of mental retardation. Such impairments are likely to have a significant impact on social and academic functioning and reflect their need for critical services otherwise unavailable to them.

The steady influx of immigrants and refugees in Central North Carolina has enriched the cultural life of this region. Unfortunately, these diverse newcomers face health disparities as they undergo language and cultural adaptation to US host society and its institutions. As a public health educator and researcher, I have applied anthropological principles and methods to exploring ways of reducing health disparities among ethnically and culturally diverse immigrant groups. This paper presents a snapshot of how as public health educator and researcher, I apply principles of anthropology to explore domains of health disparity. I will provide examples of creative research and service partnerships for addressing language and health literacy as domains of health disparity among immigrant newcomers to Guilford County, North Carolina.

Online and distance learning classes have been touted for the last several years as an innovation in higher education that should help improve the entrepreneurial growth mindset of students. However, the reported negative online learning experience of many college students worldwide during the COVID-19 epidemic has shown that many opportunities remain to improve the sustainable development and growth of online visual instruction practices. In this study, we outline and investigate a set of hypotheses related to the perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use (from TAM) of online video instruction in higher education courses during the pandemic. We employ grounded theory using autoethnographic case studies as a data source. We found that (a) synchronous broadcast lectures improve participant attitude (H1) and motivation (H2) toward online instruction, (b) prerecorded video instruction increases participant perceived “ease of use” (H3) and perceived behavioral control (H4) of online instruction, but (c) indicators of recorded dates on pre-recorded video instruction decreases participant perceived “usefulness” (H5) and “certainty” (H6) of online instruction. We enrich the insights of popular motivation models for organizations and the higher education industry by outlining a set of emotional elements originating in neuroscience leadership research (SCARF) that might either amplify or diminish the perceived the ease of use and perceived usefulness to technology usage relationships when participations engage in online learning situations.

Response scales in auditory perception assessment are critical for capturing the true responses of listeners. Despite its impact on data, response scales have received the least attention in auditory perception assessment. In this study, the usability of visual analogue scales for auditory perception assessment was investigated. Five response scales (a unipolar visual analogue scale–negated to regular, a unipolar visual analogue scale—regular to negated, a bipolar visual analogue scale–positive to negative, a bipolar visual analogue scale—negative to positive, and a unipolar 11-point scale (ISO/TS 15666:2021)) for auditory perception assessment are presented. Music and traffic noise were presented to 60 university students at two different levels, i.e., 45 and 65 dBA, respectively. A web-based experimental design was implemented, and tablet pads were provided to the respondents to record their responses. The unipolar 11-point scale required the longest response time, followed by the two unipolar visual analogue scales and two bipolar visual analogue scales with statistical significance. All response scales used in this study achieved statistical reliability and sensitivity for the auditory perception assessment. Among the five response scales, the bipolar visual analogue scale (negative to positive) ranked first in reliability over repeated measures, exhibited sensitivity in differentiating sound sources, and was preferred by the respondents under the conditions of the present study. None of the respondents preferred the unipolar 11-point scale. The visual analogue scale was favoured over the traditional unipolar 11-point scale by young educated adults in a mobile-based testing environment. Moreover, the bipolar visual analogue scale demonstrated the highest reliability and sensitivity, and it was preferred the most by the respondents. The semantic labelling direction from negated to regular, or from negative to positive, is preferred over its opposite counterpart. Further research is necessary to investigate the use of response scales for the general public including children and the elderly, as well as that of semantic adjectives and their counterparts for auditory perception assessment.