Browsing by Author "Mead, Susan Virginia"

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    Achievement of public and non-Catholic private high school students within a matched sample
    Mead, Susan Virginia (Virginia Tech, 1987-08-05)
    Over the past six years, analyses of the National Center for Education Statistics' High School and Beyond data have primarily focused on the differences in achievement between public and Catholic high school students. Valuable data on non-Catholic private school students have been virtually ignored. Based on a strategy proposed by Althauser and Rubin (1970), in this study non-Catholic private schools are matched with public schools similar in school average base year student achievement levels, school average base year student socioeconomic levels, geographic region and racial composition. T-test results show that, among students in the most similar matches, non-Catholic private school students score significantly higher on vocabulary, reading, and a test composite of vocabulary, reading and general math scores. Public/non-Catholic private differences in basic and advanced math, science and civics are not significant although all but the civics tests show a small non-Catholic private advantage. The multiple regression analyses suggest that, for the most closely matched pairs, non-Catholic private school students have a small statistically significant advantage over public students on the 1982 reading test and test composite. However, the non-Catholic private advantage on general math, science, vocabulary and writing tests, and the public advantage on the advanced math and civics tests, are not significant. Thus, the null hypothesis stating that there are no differences between the 1982 achievement test scores of students in public schools and the tests scores of students in non-Catholic private schools is generally refuted. Yet, the differences, primarily favoring non-Catholic private school students, are small and in many cases not significant.
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    Identifying academic subcultures within higher education research: an examination of scholars' careers through author cocitation
    Mead, Susan Virginia (Virginia Tech, 1993)
    Sociologists ask a myriad of questions about their cultural environment, the relationships which are formed within it, and the social products of human interaction. In recent decades, sociologists have begun to ask these questions of the scientific research community. They have been interested in identifying the social and intellectual connections which bring together scholars and their ideas, forming subcultures within academic disciplines. The present study, which follows this line of sociological inquiry, employs author cocitation analysis to identify the distinct subcultures which characterize the field of higher education research. The cocitation patterns among the twenty-one most highly cited researchers in the field are examined through multidimensional scaling, cluster analysis, and an analysis of the authors’ vitae which reveals the cognitive and social contexts of the authors’ citation careers. A unique temporal factor is introduced, dividing the scholars’ Careers into time periods based on the dates of their cited articles, in order to evaluate the extent to which author's cognitive interests and relationships change over time. The statistical analyses reveal that three dimensions and five clusters best characterize the author cocitation data. As a result of these quantitative analyses, and the more subjective analysis of the authors’ vitae, five subcultures are identified within the field of higher education research: Organizational Structure and Leadership in Academia, Impact of College Environment on Student Outcomes, Material and Nonmaterial Culture of Academia, Student Perceptions and Effective Teaching, and Hierarchy and Inequality in Education. The temporal analysis reveals that six of the authors move from one subculture to another at some point during their careers; these subcultural shifts are explained through examination of the authors’ changing research foci and career developments. The subcultures are compared on characteristics such as cluster stability, and the length and extent of influence of the subcultures on the larger culture of higher education. The unique contributions and the methodological limitations of this study are discussed, as are suggestions for further analysis of higher education research. Finally, the present methodology is reviewed in relation to its applicability to the exploration of other academic cultures, using several areas within sociology as illustrations.