The center, based in UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, found that while more than half of the survey respondents said college is too expensive and 20 percent expect costs to increase, 77 percent of respondents with a college degree said higher education is a good investment and 85 percent believe a degree will continue to pay off financially.

PIE Center researchers asked state residents for their opinions of public higher education in Florida in connection with the 150th anniversary of the Morrill Act, federal legislation that created the land-grant university system. The respondents, 523 Floridians ages 18 and older, weighed in on issues such as affordability, employment impact and personal experience.

Residents indicated that while higher education is a cost not many can afford, a college degree is an essential investment, said Alexa Lamm, an assistant professor who designed the online survey to give a demographically representative sample of Florida’s population.

Being unable to afford higher education and needing to support a family were the primary reasons some respondents said they did not attend college, Lamm said. Of the 30 percent of respondents who did not seek a college education, more than 70 percent said financing was a concern.

Of those without a diploma, 72 percent felt that a completed college education would increase their wages — by more than $50,000 annually, in some cases.

Of the 26 percent of Floridians in the study who relied on student loans to pay for their education, more than half remain in debt. Twenty percent said they haven’t begun repaying their loans, while 33 percent are making payments.

The study shows that the burden of college loans follows students after they leave the university, PIE Center Director Tracy Irani said. Almost 60 percent of respondents said their student loans made it harder to pay other bills or make ends meet, and 41 percent reported that debt made it harder to purchase a home.

About nine out of 10 parents who responded to the survey said they believe their child will go to college and 56 percent have saved money for tuition. Of the parents who said they are saving, 60 percent believe they are making at least “adequate” progress toward that goal.

Through its survey, the PIE Center collected data about Floridians’ perceptions about online degrees and the role higher education plays in local communities and economies. More information can be found on the center’s special report webpage, www.piecenter.com/highered.

Other survey findings:

• More than 50 percent of Floridians believe that getting an online degree to be as worthwhile as one earned by attending in person, but only 33 percent believe their employer would agree.
• Although public higher education is an important issue to Floridians, they are more concerned with the economy, health care and public K-12 education.
• Almost 45 percent of respondents believe a college education is useful in preparing for the workforce and obtaining a job. Sixty percent reported that a college education is “very useful” in increasing one’s knowledge and personal growth.
• Fifty-four percent of Floridians said the state’s higher education system is doing a good or excellent job at providing academic programs that meet the needs of today’s economy.

• UF study shows long-term drug abuse starts with alcohol
• UF scientists find state record 87 eggs in largest python from Everglades
• University of Florida astronomer reports rare case of gravitational lensing
• UF report: 2011 shark attacks remain steady, deaths highest since 1993
• UF researchers develop “nanorobot” that can be programmed to target different diseases
• New UF study shows early North Americans lived with extinct giant beasts
• UF’s Gator Marching Band makes history in London
• Search Committee Appointed to Recruit New UF President
• UF veterinary researchers discover new virus linked to death of Australian snakes
• UF trustees OK naming building, business school for Heavener

For the past 15 years, UF College of Education researchers Stephen Smith, the Irving and Rose Fien Endowed Professor, and associate scholar Ann Daunic have been developing a curriculum that would target these students’ problem-solving skills. The curriculum, Tools for Getting Along, known as TFGA, gives upper elementary students processes for approaching social problems rationally.

“A lot of times when kids are having a social conflict with another person, it can be emotion-laden,” Smith said. “Because of that, they can end up with an irrational approach to solving their problems, often through physical or verbal aggression, or some other inappropriate behavior that doesn’t really achieve what they want to achieve.”

Daunic and Smith’s latest evaluation of their problem-solving curriculum appeared in a spring issue of the Journal of School Psychology. Smith said the paper is the first to reveal the curriculum’s effectiveness.

In the study, the curriculum was randomly assigned to about half of the 87 fourth- and fifth-grade classrooms observed in 14 schools in North Central Florida with the other half receiving no intervention. Almost 1,300 students participated in the study.

Between 70 and 87 percent of the students in both groups studied received free and reduced price lunch, an attribute of socioeconomic status that can contribute to risk for emotional and behavioral difficulties. The researchers also considered gender and race, which can also be associated with this risk.

“While the target of Tools for Getting Along is children who have difficulties, it’s also a preventive curriculum because it is implemented classwide with the idea that peers will help at-risk children see that there are other ways to solve problems that are more productive,” Daunic said.

The curriculum contains instructional lessons, role-play scenarios, small-group activities and practice opportunities. Then, the effects of tool kit’s 27 lessons were evaluated through teacher and student self-reports, observations and other measures.

Smith said the most significant findings of the recent study measuring TFGA’s effects were the improvements in teacher ratings of students’ “executive functions” — a psychological term describing a set of mental processes, including attention flexibility, working memory for temporarily storing and organizing information, and inhibitory control — that help us regulate our emotions and behaviors in new situations.

With better attention flexibility, students are able to shift their attention from being on the aggressive offense in a social conflict to thinking through alternative strategies. Improvement in working memory and inhibitory control enhances students’ ability to stop and think before acting upon emotions.

“I think this shows a good example of what teachers can do for kids to allow them to equip themselves with a way to handle their own behavior,” Smith said. “It’s an opportunity for students to learn how to control behavior when teachers aren’t there to manage it for them, like at recess, in the cafeteria, on the school bus and at home.”

Daunic said that the study’s results are particularly important in light of current research in neuropsychology and neuroscience that ties children’s emotional well-being with their behavior in school and academic success.

“As more research comes out about the brain and how we learn, there’s more support for interventions that help young people regulate their emotions and regulate their thought processes socially and academically,” Daunic said. “What makes me feel good about this kind of work is that there’s more and more evidence about its importance.”

According to Daunic, positive effects of Tools for Getting Along have endured even a year after the study took place. The researchers are now writing a paper about the curriculum’s longer-term effects and analyzing more data. Their findings will then be reviewed by national educational review panels, or clearinghouses, and considered for designation as a preferred, “evidence-based practice” in education.

The curriculum is available for purchase by teachers and schools at http://education.ufl.edu/conflict-resolution.

UF officials said Monday the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs has granted the first of five annual, $5 million awards to the education college to establish a center to support the development of effective teachers — in general and special education classrooms –and education leaders to serve students with disabilities.

“This grant represents the Education Department’s largest investment ever in improving education for students with disabilities,” said co-principal investigator and UF special education professor Mary Brownell.

She said the new Collaboration for Educator Development and Accountability and Reform, also known as CEDAR Center, will open in January in Norman Hall, home of the College of Education. Other UF co-principal investigators are Paul Sindelar and Erica McCray, also in special education.

Brownell said the CEDAR Center will work with states in strengthening professional standards and reforming preparation and certification programs for general and special education teachers, and school and school district leaders who work with students with disabilities. The center also will help states revise their teacher evaluation systems to align with the higher professional standards.

“Studies establish that our current systems for licensing, preparing, developing, supporting and evaluating teachers to effectively instruct students with unique needs are wholly inadequate,” Brownell said. “The CEDAR Center approach is to reform and align these areas with research-proven practices and professional standards.”

“This grant will allow the special education field to take a giant step in improving the education of all students,” she said. “Students with disabilities perform in school more poorly than any other subgroup of students. With truly effective instruction, though, many of these students have abilities that will allow them to advance and succeed in college, career and other postsecondary options.”

Through the CEDAR Center, the UF group is partnering with nine other organizations with plans to eventually roll out a special-education reform program to 20 states. The center’s primary partner is the American Institutes for Research. Other collaborators include the University of Kansas, the New Teacher Center (a national non-profit), the University of Washington at Bothell, the Council for Exceptional Children and several other national professional organizations.

The findings may not settle a decades-old debate over how drug abuse begins, but it could help educators and policymakers build more effective drug-prevention programs, said Adam Barry, an assistant professor and researcher in the College of Health and Human Performance.

“By recognizing the important predictive role of alcohol and delaying initiation of alcohol use, school officials and public health leaders can positively impact the progression of substance use,” he said. “I am confident in our findings and the clear implications they have for school-based prevention programs. By delaying and/or preventing the use of alcohol, these programs can indirectly reduce the rate of use of other substances.”

The study appears in the August issue of the Journal of School Health.

Barry used a nationally representative sample of high school seniors, evaluating data collected through the annual Monitoring the Future study. The study, conducted by the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan, uses questionnaires to examine the behaviors, attitudes and values of secondary school students, college students and young adults. Once collected, the data is made available for evaluation by other researchers and institutions.

Barry’s study focused on data collected from 14,577 high school seniors from 120 public and private schools in the United States.

He evaluated whether the students had ever used any of 11 substances, including licit substances such as alcohol and tobacco, as well as illicit substances like marijuana, cocaine, heroin, LSD, amphetamines, tranquilizers and other narcotics. The results indicated that alcohol, not marijuana or tobacco, was most often the first substance students tried, he said.

In the sample of students, alcohol also represented the most commonly used substance, with 72.2 percent of students reporting alcohol consumption at some point in their lifetime. Comparatively, 45 percent of students reported using tobacco, and 43.3 percent cited marijuana use.

In addition, the drug use documented found that substance use typically begins with the most socially acceptable drugs, such as alcohol and cigarettes, then proceeds to marijuana use and finally to other illegal, harder drugs. Moreover, the study showed that students who used alcohol exhibited a significantly greater likelihood — up to 16 times — of licit and illicit substance use.

“These findings add further credence to the literature identifying alcohol as the gateway drug to other substance use,” he said.

Barry also cited the important role of parents and their alcohol-related attitudes and policies in the home.

“Parents should know that a strict, zero-tolerance policy at home is best. Increasing alcohol-specific rules and decreasing availability will help prevent an adolescent’s alcohol use,” he said. “The longer that alcohol initiation is delayed, the more likely that other drug or substance use will be delayed or prevented as well.”

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Supported by a $2 million grant from the National Science Foundation, University of Florida math education researcher Tim Jacobbe is leading a multi-center effort to create high-quality testing instruments in statistics, which will help teachers keep middle and high school students on track for meeting rigorous, new national math standards.

With 45 states, including Florida, already adopting new Common Core national math standards developed in 2010, many school districts are expected to add or expand the teaching of statistics in the middle and high school grades. Researchers, though, say more reliable assessment tools are needed to measure their progress accurately.

“We’ll base our testing instrument on American Statistical Association guidelines that identify three developmental levels for learning statistics. Students must progress through each level to develop sound statistical reasoning skills,” said Jacobbe, UF assistant professor of mathematics education and principal investigator of the NSF-funded study. “The new assessment tool will help teachers assess where students are at the beginning of the school year so they can plan instruction for the appropriate level of statistical understanding.”

Besides UF’s College of Education, the four-year study also involves scholars in statistics and assessment from the University of Minnesota, Kenyon College and the Educational Testing Service, an independent, nonprofit organization based in Princeton, N.J.

The Common Core State Standards are a blueprint for what all American students should learn in English and math, in each grade, from kindergarten through high school. They were coordinated in 2010 by the National Governors Association and a national council of chief state school officers for K-12 education. Florida schools are scheduled to start using the new standards by the 2013-2014 school year.

“Statistical thinking is very different from mathematical thinking and needs to be taught and assessed in a different manner,” Jacobbe said.

Current statistical instruction and assessment are grade level-specific, but Jacobbe said his research team is following a model identifying the three levels of understanding of key statistical concepts, regardless of a student’s grade level.

About 2,850 students in grades 6-12 will participate in the UF-led study. Two school districts, in Florida and Georgia, will administer initial pilot-testing of the experimental assessment methods. The Florida school district is P.K. Yonge Developmental Research School, UF’s K-12 laboratory school, which serves as its own school district. They will be joined by school districts in Arizona, New Jersey, Ohio and Pennsylvania for large-scale testing in the study’s fourth year.

The researchers will work closely with two national consortia of state leaders in government, business and education which last year received a combined $330 million in federal Race to the Top funds to create the next generation of tests to measure annual student growth in English and math. The two groups are the 25-state Partnership for Assessment of Readiness of College and Careers, known as PARCC, which includes Florida, and the 31-state SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium.

To broaden the impact of their work, Jacobbe said his team will report its study results in peer-review journals and at peer-review academic meetings and will create a website featuring sample assessment tools and other resources for teaching statistics.

“Consistent standards in statistics and mathematics will provide appropriate benchmarks for all students regardless of where they live, and that’s critical in today’s global economy,” Jacobbe said.

Their intervention research targets at-risk children during two of the most critical times of their development — before they enter kindergarten and the transitional middle school years, grades 6 through 8. The highly competitive grants were awarded by the U.S. Department of Education.

The prekindergarten study, funded by a $4 million grant, is a joint effort between special education and early-childhood researchers at UF and Virginia Commonwealth University. Co-investigators Maureen Conroy of UF and Kevin Sutherland of VCU will examine the efficacy of their experimental intervention — called BEST in CLASS — that showed high promise in a preliminary study.

The four-year investigation will involve 120 voluntary prekindergarten classrooms, most of them in Head Start programs, split between UF’s home region in North Central Florida and VCU’s hometown of Richmond, Va. Each year, 90 children identified as high-risk for emotional and behavioral disorders will undergo the intervention; a second group of 90 at-risk children will serve as a comparison group.

“As many as one-fourth of children in Head Start classes exhibit significant problem behaviors that place them at elevated risk for future development, and most have never been in structured classroom situations before,” Conroy said. “Through 14 weeks of classroom-based coaching, we will train teachers to implement effective instructional strategies for improving children’s emotional behavior competence.”
Conroy said the BEST in CLASS model emphasizes both individual and class-wide interventions to improve interactions between the teacher and students and enhance the overall classroom atmosphere for learning.

“Teachers discuss classroom rules and routines with students and praise specific positive behavior — for example, sitting and waiting their turn in a circle during a game or sharing time,” she said. “Such strategies aren’t necessarily new, but we show teachers how to use them more precisely and intensely for given situations. The teacher works to prevent any problem behaviors during typical classroom activities.”

The treatment also has a home-school component where teachers send home a daily “behavior report card” stating, in a positive manner, how their child behaved or which corrective behaviors they learned that day.
The second federal grant, worth $1.5 million, supports the work of University of Florida special education professors Stephen Smith and Ann Daunic, who are developing a lesson series teaching middle school students with significant behavior problems techniques to control their emotions and behavior in social situations.

“The middle school years are difficult enough for students in their pre-teen and early adolescent years. Those with serious emotional and behavioral disorders face tremendous obstacles to learning,” Smith said. “They require focused attention to help them develop the essential skills for modifying their behavior, and we need to catch them before they drop out of school or end up in the juvenile or adult justice systems.”

Smith and Daunic, with doctoral student Brian Barber, are developing a curriculum for teachers of children with emotional and behavioral disorders, and they’ve given it a name — In Control — that’s as much a mantra for the students as it is the program’s title. It’s actually a two-unit, 26-lesson curriculum that shows students how their minds work and how they can use that knowledge to take control over their own behavior and their learning process.

“Up to 10 percent of middle school students have significant behavioral issues that merit some attention outside of what is normally provided in our education system,” Smith said. “We are developing lessons that tap self-control skills such as monitoring your thoughts, inhibiting impulses, planning better, and adapting to changing situations.”

“These high-level skills — known collectively as ‘executive functions’ — are fundamental to helping students set personal goals, control their emotions and improve their social problem-solving abilities.”

Starting in August, the researchers will spend two years developing and testing the In Control lessons in collaboration with special education teachers, school counselors and school psychologists at two Gainesville schools — Lincoln and Fort Clarke middle schools. Participating students will be from small classrooms especially for students with emotional and behavioral disorders.

The UF researchers will continually refine and polish the curriculum and expand testing in the third year. If their curriculum effectively improves students’ behavior and learning, they will publish their preliminary findings and develop a professional development package for additional large-scale testing.

The UF Lastinger Center for Learning, part of UF’s College of Education, is staging the showcases with its partner school districts in Miami-Dade, Duval, Pinellas and Collier counties as part of its award-winning Florida Master Teacher Initiative. The events highlight educator-conducted, classroom-oriented inquiry projects, which aim to boost student achievement.

“The learning showcases underline some of the deep, meaningful work that teachers are doing in our partner schools,” said Don Pemberton, director of the UF Lastinger Center. “I always marvel at the scope and breadth of the projects. Their questions and solutions enlighten us all.”

The number of research presentations has grown steadily each year. In 2010, teachers presented 921 projects. Some teachers are participating for the first time; others, like Judith Rosen of Greynolds Park Elementary in Miami, are veterans.

“This experience, which really respects the individual knowledge and expertise of educators, is so empowering,” Rosen said.

Guided by UF Lastinger Center professors-in-residence and facilitators, the teachers address practical issues in their classrooms using the latest research and best practices, implement changes and share the results with their colleagues around the state.

Here are two examples:

1. “A Different Perspective on Behavior Intervention.” Two first-grade teachers at George Washington Carver Elementary in Jacksonville examined whether students improve their behavior if they discuss their daily goals with a person other than their classroom teacher? The answer: yes.

2. “Venturing with Vocabulary.” A third-grade teacher at Westgate Elementary in
St. Petersburg tested whether having a daily vocabulary routine improved his students’ reading comprehension. The answer: yes.

Pinellas and Duval will hold their showcases May 11 at Ruth Eckerd Hall in Clearwater and University of North Florida Center in Jacksonville, respectively. Collier is having its event May 19 at Pinecrest Elementary School in Immokalee and Miami-Dade’s is on May 21 at Miami Beach Senior High School.

The UF Lastinger Center is a global leader in the teacher quality movement. Harnessing the university’s intellectual resources, it partners with philanthropic, educational, governmental and business organizations to create, field-test, scale and disseminate new models and strategies to transform teaching and learning throughout the world.

The museum created the free apps based on exhibits at the Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens to provide visitors with an interactive, educational experience, but the mobile technology allows users to learn more about the animals from any location, said Dale Johnson, Florida Museum project coordinator.

Both apps, designed for children 6 and older, are available through Apple’s iTunes store for the iPod touch and iPhone, and intended to be used by the entire family while exploring the zoo.

“The apps direct visitor attention to specific animal behaviors using mobile devices as a learning tool,” said Betty Dunckel, director of informal science education at the Florida Museum.

“Call the Wild: Penguins” guides zoo visitors on a mission to find Putty the Magellanic Penguin. The app gives users clues to find Putty and explains why it is important for zookeepers to be able to identify each animal at the zoo. It also illustrates the penguin’s habitat and diet, and describes how to protect and conserve these flightless birds.

“Call the Wild: Alligators” helps visitors discover the characteristics and behaviors of these powerful reptiles.

“The app gets users to observe alligators and think about how their movements within the exhibit help regulate their body temperatures,” Dunckel said.

It also allows users to compare alligators to Komodo Dragons, watch videos and learn about alligator diets, reproduction, adaptations and conservation.

The apps were developed as part of a National Science Foundation project investigating the use of mobile technology to engage zoo visitors in learning about the nature of science. Before developing the apps, project researchers experimented with a variety of techniques to engage visitors using mobile phones.

“Mobile phone technology remains a somewhat untapped educational resource,” said Jaret Daniels, co-principal investigator on the project and head of exhibits and public programs at the Florida Museum. “It offers new opportunities to deliver dynamic content and new ways for zoo visitors to learn and interact.”

The project’s other principal investigators were Paul Boyle of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, and Joy Jordan, formerly with UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. Other partners include the Institute for Learning Innovation and Odysseus Mobile Computing.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — In building a culture where even the most underprivileged students can achieve academic success, schools may be able to inadvertently stymie another problem: drug and alcohol use.

While studying 61 inner-city middle schools in Chicago, University of Florida researchers found that students in schools that performed better than expected were less likely to use drugs and alcohol, steal or participate in fights than children in schools that did not perform as well. The study was published in March in the journal Prevention Science.

Higher performance in the classroom reduced the rate of drug use and delinquency in schools by as much as 25 percent, said Amy Tobler, a research assistant professor of health outcomes and policy in the UF College of Medicine and the study’s lead author.

The schools in question all had high populations of ethnic minorities and children from underprivileged homes, factors often linked to lower achievement in schools, Tobler said.

“It could be good teaching, better administration, whatever these schools are doing, if we can replicate it, it will lead to not only academic achievement but improvement in healthy behaviors as well,” Tobler said. “Some schools can break that strong link between sociodemographic disadvantage and drug use and delinquency.”

The researchers collected data in the schools between 2002 and 2005, following students in their sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade years. Academic achievement scores were based on standardized tests on reading and math, which public school students in all states are required to take. The researchers determined how well schools should perform based on each school’s own sociodemographic factors and compared that to how well they actually fared. They then compared that information to achievement and attendance records and data collected about students’ drug and alcohol use.

Of the 61 schools, seven performed better than expected academically, a link that seemed to help keep kids in class and off drugs and alcohol, Tobler said.

“I think the study is provocative, and it has one remarkable aspect: Schools that do better have effects that are not (solely) academic, and that tells you that the whole culture of the school is important,” said David Berliner, a Regents professor emeritus of education at Arizona State University, who was not involved with the study. “It is a school-culture effect. It is not surprising, in a way. If you can get low-income kids to identify with a school, you get better kids at the end.”

The researchers refer to this link between a school’s academic culture and students’ healthy behaviors as “value-added education,” a concept that was first shown in the United Kingdom in a different population of students. The UF study shows that this can work among students facing disadvantages as well, Tobler said.

“I was really curious when we started this if we would have any schools that were overcoming that link between sociodemographics and high-risk behaviors,” Tobler said. “That we had seven schools that were doing it is pretty encouraging, I think.”

But the progress could be undercut by proposed funding cuts to educational programs across the country, Tobler added.

“Almost all states are cutting budgets to public education,” Tobler said. “We are increasingly asking them to do more and more with fewer resources. The extent to which schools can achieve this value-added education or continue it may be severely limited by budget cuts.”

Other researchers who contributed to the study include Kelli Komroand Alexis Dabroski of UF; Paul Aveyard of the University of Birmingham; and Wolfgang A. Markham of the University of Warwick.

UF officials said the campuswide center will be a model training, demonstration and research site where UF scholars — in fields as diverse as education, medicine, law, public health and the life sciences — will work with local, state and national partners on issues pertaining to young children and their families.

Their collective mission: to advance the science and practice of early childhood development and early learning.

UF Provost Joseph Glover said the center is a joint effort by the College of Education, Baby Gator Child Development and Research Center, the College of Medicine and UF’s Office of Human Resource Services.

The center’s creation is the culmination of work that started with the 2007 appointment of world-class scholar Patricia Snyder to the College of Education’s David Lawrence Jr. Endowed Chair in Early Childhood Studies. Snyder was charged with mobilizing the university’s top specialists in early childhood studies for collaborative research and training activities.

“We are organizing the center as a comprehensive early learning campus, with young children learning in a high-quality environment,” said Snyder, the center’s founding director.

The College of Education will initially house the center’s administrative offices in Norman Hall, with Baby Gator — UF’s early education and care program for infants, toddlers, and preschoolers — serving as the primary “hub” of center activities. Both Baby Gator campus facilities will participate.

Snyder said future plans call for building a third, state-of-the-art Baby Gator facility with ample space for all center administration and child care activities, at a site yet to be determined.

Snyder is one of the nation’s foremost authorities in early childhood studies. She came to UF from Vanderbilt University, where she directed research at its Center for Child Development. Locally, Snyder is on the Alachua County steering committee for the Children’s Movement of Florida, formed to spotlight the development and education of young children as Florida’s top priority.

Pamela Pallas, Baby Gator director since 2003, also joins the leadership team. Pallas has steered Baby Gator’s reorganization from a more traditional child care facility into a nationally recognized and accredited child development and research center. Baby Gator’s two centers currently serve 240 children from 6 weeks to 5 years, with a waiting list of more than 200 children.

Snyder said UF pediatrics professors Marylou Behnke and Fonda Davis Eyler, who co-direct the North Central Florida Early Steps program (supporting infants and toddlers with disabilities), and UF education professor Maureen Conroy, also will play key leadership roles in research and the clinical training of graduate students. They are already collaborating on early prevention and intervention studies for young children with or at risk for disabilities, including young children with autism.

“We’ll be developing the next generation of early-childhood studies leaders, creating new doctoral programs and forming an infant-toddler (birth-age 3) specialization track in our early education programs,” Snyder said.

To receive formal center designation, the Center for Excellence in Early Childhood Studies required approval from the provost and Vice President for Research Win Phillips.

“This center fills a critical gap in addressing a key educational priority identified by both the state of Florida and the nation,” said UF education Dean Catherine Emihovich.

Also instrumental in the center’s formation is David Lawrence Jr., a UF alumnus and the namesake of Snyder’s endowed chair. Since retiring in 1999 as publisher of the Miami Herald, Lawrence has devoted his life to promoting early child education and well-being. He holds an academic appointment as a UF Scholar and is president of the Early Childhood Initiative Foundation in Miami, which currently partners with UF in a massive school-readiness and early-learning effort in Dade County schools.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Far from being undecided about what direction to take in life, many students just starting in college already know their career callings, a new University of Florida study finds.

More than 40 percent of freshmen surveyed at a large East Coast university indicated they had a career calling and another 30 percent said they were searching for one, said Ryan Duffy, a UF psychology professor who led the research.

“I think often we have a stereotype of the typical student changing majors 10 times over the course of their college career,” he said. “That a sizeable minority of these undergraduate students, whose average age is about 19, believe they have a career calling dispels this idea.”

Believing one is meant for a particular profession often correlates with academic achievement in college and eventual success in the workplace, said Duffy, whose study is published in the September issue of The Career Development Quarterly journal.

“It provides students with meaning and purpose that can help guide them in their career path across the college years,” he said. “If you have a calling, you’re more likely to be satisfied in your major, feel comfortable with your career decisions and have a lot more self-clarity about how your interests and values relate to your life’s work.”

Duffy said he was surprised to find so many students with a career calling, expecting it to be closer to 10 percent. Career counselors should consider asking students if they have career calling and let them take the lead, he said.

Making the right career decision has long lasting and even lifetime effects, Duffy said. “Work occupies the majority of our waking time as adults, so ideally we want people going into jobs that they enjoy, are productive at and perform well at,” he said.

Duffy and William Sedlacek, an emeritus education professor at the University of Maryland, surveyed 5,523 students who were entering the university in 2006 or 2007. Forty-four percent said having a career calling was “mostly true” or “totally true” of themselves. Its presence was determined by how strongly respondents agreed or disagreed on a five-point scale with the statement “I have a calling to a particular kind of work.”

A century ago, the term “calling” meant a direct call by God to a religious vocation, Duffy said. In this study, students who searched for meaning in life were more likely to feel pulled to a particular profession, but it had little relationship to how religious they were, he said.

Those seeking advanced degrees, such as in medicine or law, or a doctorate in other fields, were more likely to feel called to a certain line of work, Duffy said. The opportunity for personal meaning in terms of helping others may make work as a professor, doctor or lawyer especially attractive to young people experiencing a career calling, he said.

Of all groups, students interested in pursuing medicine were most likely to endorse a calling, perhaps because doctors are such role models for community service, he said.

Surprisingly, students who reported a calling were only minimally more satisfied with their lives than those not drawn to a particular career, but that could be because they are several years away from full-time employment, Duffy said. “Unlike adults, students who have a calling aren’t doing it yet, so its impact on life satisfaction is not going to be that large,” he said.

By the time students graduate from college, though, there is no guarantee that the tough economy will allow them space in the field of their choice, Duffy said. “They’re probably going to be doing a job that’s either not their calling to start out with or is not completely their calling,” he said.

But all is not lost for these thwarted students because they could become accustomed to, and later greatly enjoy, the career that circumstances brought their way, he said.

“I think you can build a calling based on where you’re at,” he said. “If you’re stuck in a job because you can’t change, it’s not that great a job or for whatever reason, there are ways you can find meaning or make the job more pro-social so you will start viewing it as a calling.”

People are well-advised to rethink their careers to consider both personal and social aspects, Duffy said. Americans are so used to viewing occupational choice in terms of the most desirable personal fit, which is very much a Western idea, he said.

“What we don’t do much of is ask students what work could you do that would best meet society’s needs, taking into account both personal and social fit,” he said. “We know that people who pay attention to both these things are much happier in their jobs.”

Despite its relevance to people’s lives, the idea of a career calling has been the subject of little or no research, Duffy said. “In an ideal world, we would want everyone to have a calling because it’s such a motivating force in people’s lives,” he said.

The UF-Miami partners, already working together on a prototype school-readiness initiative in Miami-Dade schools, received $5 million in stimulus funds from the U.S. Department of Education to expand the scope of their project. The money will fund an innovative, countywide effort to train master teachers in Dade schools. The Florida group was one of only 49 winning applicants.

The federal grant also requires recipients to arrange $1 million in matching funds. The UF-Miami group received their match from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, raising the total amount of support to $6 million.

The winning grants were announced Monday by the partnering groups.

Under the four-year project, UF College of Education early-childhood specialists will develop and teach a free, job-embedded master’s and specialist degree program in early childhood education for 100 early-childhood teachers in 25 high-need elementary schools. The degree program blends on-site and online coursework so teachers can remain in their own classrooms during their graduate studies.

“Miami-Dade County Public Schools is proud to be in the forefront of early learning innovation,” said Superintendent of Schools Alberto Carvalho. “The school district recognizes the importance of developing educational building blocks for our youngest learners. This grant and the partnership with the University of Florida will greatly benefit our students, parents and educators.”

UF’s novel, tuition-free program is part of the education college’s Florida Master Teacher Initiative. The tuition of more than $20,000 is offset by grants and stipends from the Kellogg foundation and other groups.

Participating teachers will create “professional learning communities” and organize special training opportunities for their colleagues at school. Over the course of the grant, the free training in early-child learning is expected to benefit some 1,125 area teachers and impact 30,000 of Miami-Dade’s youngest schoolchildren.

Learning communities for principals at partnering schools also will be created to help them lead school improvement efforts.

Don Pemberton, director of the UF college’s Lastinger Center for Learning, which coordinates the Master Teacher Initiative, said the Miami-Dade project will be “rigorously evaluated” to assess its impact on the school communities and culture, and on teaching effectiveness and student achievement.

“This entire effort builds on cutting-edge research, the best practices in professional development for teaching and school leadership, and the front-line experience of the partnering groups in Miami-Dade, the nation’s most diverse community,” Pemberton said.

UF’s Lastinger Center, Miami-Dade Schools and The Early Child Initiative Foundation, which is based in Miami, have been working together since 2006 on an ambitious school-readiness effort called Ready Schools Florida, supported by a $10 million grant from the Kellogg Foundation.

Pemberton said the model for this latest effort, combined with rigorous assessment and the diverse makeup of the Miami-Dade school district, makes the Florida Master Teacher Initiative prime for a national rollout.

“We truly believe this work is transformational for teachers and schools, and we’re demonstrating it can scale up to thousands and thousands of teachers,” Pemberton said.

So concludes John Spengler, an associate professor in the University of Florida’s Department of Tourism, Recreation and Sports Management.

Spengler recently completed a national study that found that even small legislative changes could encourage public schools to open their playgrounds and other sport and recreational facilities on school property for healthy recreation after school hours.

“For children in communities with few resources, a school in the heart of their community may be the only option for physical activity when a public park is too far away or their family can’t afford to join a fitness center,” said Spengler. “Without this option, they are more likely to stay in the house, watch television and play video games.”

Schools are ideal for community recreation because they usually are closer to home, are more safe and familiar to kids and parents, and have exercise amenities such as tracks, gymnasiums, ball fields, playgrounds and courts, Spengler said.

But principals and school districts often close the facilities after hours because they fear costly lawsuits and liability for payouts if someone is hurt, he said.

One remedy is small changes to existing laws, Spengler said. The study he led, scheduled for publication in the July issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, and available online today, analyzes recreation use laws from all 50 states. It found that 42 states have laws that, with minor legislative changes, could potentially limit public schools’ liability when members of the public use school property for recreation after regular classroom hours.

While these laws include broad language about liability protection, they lack uniformity and depth of coverage, Spengler said. They would be more effective if they listed specific recreational activities that would likely take place on school property after hours and that are conducive to physical activity, he said.

Five state laws simply refer to activities undertaken for the purpose of recreation, leaving courts to interpret the meaning of “recreation” within the context of a particular case, Spengler said. Other states use broad terms such as “winter sports,” “athletic competition,” “recreational activities” and “sporting events and activities,” he said.

Of the small number of states that list activities protected from liability, bicycling was the most commonly mentioned in recreational laws, by 16 states, followed by rollerskating and rollerblading, 4, and skateboarding, 3. Only one state, Idaho, identified “playing on playground equipment” as a protected activity and no state recreational laws specifically mentioned activities that take place in indoor facilities, he said.

“It’s important for legislators to consider incorporating changes that would cover activities in gymnasiums since weather constraints often prevent people from exercising outdoors,” Spengler said.

Another possible solution, although not addressed in the paper, would involve splitting the risk of liability between parties, such as a school district and a city, through a joint use agreement, he said.

“Liability is not the only barrier to public access to school facilities,” he said. “There is also cost, maintenance, security and supervision. But we feel it is the most important issue that needs to be addressed in terms of making school administrators feel more comfortable about opening their facilities.”

The subject is particularly timely with increasing public awareness about the relationship between physical inactivity and obesity, particularly among children, a problem that is receiving national prominence with attention from First Lady Michelle Obama, he said.

Despite the health benefits of schools allowing members of the general public to use their facilities for recreation, community access remained unchanged for youth and adult community sports teams, classes and open gym between 2000 and 2006, Spengler said. In addition, unpublished data from a national study of school principals found that schools were limiting after hours activities for their own students and others out of fear of lawsuits, he said.

Right down to the neighborhood and street number.

The researchers attribute their finding to a profound correlation they documented between home location, family lifestyles and students’ achievement on state standardized tests.

“The core philosophy of school reform today is that effective schools and quality teaching can correct all learning problems, including those of poor minority students who are most at risk, and if they fail it’s the educators’ fault,” said Harry Daniels, professor of counselor education at UF’s College of Education and lead investigator of the study. “While school improvement and teaching quality are vital, we are demonstrating that the most important factor in student learning may be the children’s lifestyle and the early learning opportunities they receive at home.

“Where students live — their neighborhood and even the street — may be the most accurate indicator of academic achievement.”

Since 2006, the researchers have conducted ongoing studies in two Florida school districts, in Alachua and Bay counties, tracking children from working poor families compared with more well-off counterparts.

Daniels and co-researchers Eric Thompson and Dia Harden, both UF graduate students in counselor education, reported their findings March 20 in Pittsburgh at the American Counseling Association’s annual conference and exposition, the world’s largest gathering of counselors.

Collaborating with UF business geography professor Grant Thrall, the Florida researchers produced special “geo-demographic” maps of the two school districts, showing every student’s home address, color-coded to indicate their household lifestyle traits. The researchers borrowed “lifestyle segmentation” profiling methods used by direct marketers and political strategists to classify every student into one of several lifestyle groups (four in Bay County, three in Alachua), each based on a common set of values, income level, spending patterns, education level, ethnic diversity of neighborhood and other shared traits.

“The color-coded patterns on the maps reflect the tendency of families with like lifestyles to live in clusters in the same neighborhoods, and family income level is just one of several variables they share,” Daniels said.

The researchers then examined the relationship between each group’s lifestyle profile and their math and reading scores on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, the state’s standardized exam used to evaluate student and school performance. Researchers discovered the groups’ socio-economic level corresponded with their group ranking on FCAT scores. The most affluent lifestyle group registered the highest FCAT scores, the second richest group ranked second in test scores, and so on. On the math tests, the gap between the highest and lowest scoring lifestyle groups was more than two grade levels.

“The testing patterns in both counties virtually mirrored each other,” Daniels said. “Every lifestyle group improved in FCAT scores from year to year until the 10th grade exam (which students must pass to graduate high school), when improvement leveled off. But they all improved at the same rate, so the achievement gap persisted year to year.”

On the researchers’ special maps, the color-coding patterns by neighborhood were almost identical for both FCAT achievement levels and lifestyle profiles.

While neighborhood location and a student’s home life are factors beyond teachers’ control, Daniels said such home-based variables merit heightened attention in bridging the achievement gap in America’s schools.

“The promise of this approach is its potential to help schools reach those younger students in time to improve their chances for success,” he said.

The UF study entailed analysis of massive student test results. Researchers tracked five years’ worth of test scores for Bay County public schools (2003-2007), and three years’ worth (2004-2006) in Alachua County schools. They analyzed scores only from students who took the FCAT every year of the study—more than 14,000 in each county. Over the years, those students generated more than 42,000 FCAT scores each in reading and math in Alachua County, and some 72,000 test scores in each subject in Bay County. Overall, more than a quarter-million test scores were analyzed.

William Goodman, supervisor of guidance and student services for Alachua County Public Schools, said the UF team’s data-mapping methods can help school districts target specific neighborhoods and schools for federal and state grant money to improve educational services.

“Data mapping and life-segmentation research is likely to become more prevalent as there is a growing awareness about how this decision-making tool might best be used to improve the quality of life for students,” Goodman said.