Navigating worlds of information: STEM literacy practices of experienced makers

Making as a design-centered learning activity has recently received significant attention in education. We use literacies—how individuals use representations to learn—to explore the STEM literacy practices of experienced designers and makers. Describing makers’ representational practices in STEM contexts can inform the design of literacy supports for young makers that can encourage their use of representations to connect STEM disciplines and design practices. We interviewed experienced makers to describe one literacy practice central to design: identifying, organizing, and integrating information. Makers enacted this practice within specific making processes—e.g., designing—with the purpose of sourcing and navigating information related to their chosen problems. The research supports efforts to bridge learning while making with learning in schools by positioning STEM literacies as central practices involved in the processes of designing and making.     

LONGER‐RUN EFFECTS OF ANTI‐POVERTY POLICIES ON DISADVANTAGED NEIGHBORHOODS

We assess evidence on the longer‐run effects of minimum wages, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and welfare on key economic indicators of economic self‐sufficiency in disadvantaged neighborhoods. The evidence suggests that the longer‐run effects of the Earned Income Tax Credit are to increase employment and to reduce poverty and public assistance. We also find some evidence consistent with higher welfare benefits having longer‐run adverse effects, and stronger evidence that tighter welfare time limits reduce poverty and public assistance in the longer‐run. The evidence on the longer‐run effects of the minimum wage on poverty and public assistance is not robust. (JEL J22, J23, J38)     

Using Limited Information to Support the Decision to Launch a New Product in the Fruit Juice Market: A Teaching Case Study

Fresh Juice Incorporated (FJI) is in the process of determining whether it should launch a new fruit juice, Genetically Enhanced (GE) Juice. The GE Juice meets consumers' demands for a tasty, nutritious product and it would be the first new juice product in the last fifteen years. Before FJI decides to launch GE Juice, it must analyze the uncertainty surrounding market size, market share, and price of GE Juice. Finally, if FJI decides to launch GE Juice, then they must decide if they will bottle the juice themselves or outsource this process. This case teaches students how to discuss the strategic implications of launching a new product and develop a net present value and financial feasibility simulation model given limited information.     

E-Shopping Patterns of Chinese and US Millennials

A conceptually based taxonomy of 22 distinct forms of e-shopping vehicles is proposed. A modification of the UTAUT and UTAUT2 models is introduced to explain how vehicles are interrelated in regard to consumer reliance upon them for their e-purchasing. A survey of over 1,000 millennial university students, 697 Chinese and 306 US, revealed strong support in both samples for the hypothesized six dimensional pattern underlying consumer vehicular reliance. Further, differences between Chinese and US samples lay not in the nature of the dimensions, but rather in the strength of reliance upon each dimension. Thus, the study demonstrates the utility of the concept/measure of shopper vehicular reliance, VPR (Vehicle Purchasing Reliance) for both practitioners and scientists. In cross-national comparisons, observed differences between samples in strength of reliance supported four of five hypotheses predicated on previously established national distinctions a) in trust and b) in the cultural value of individualism-collectivism.     

International Students in Asia: Travel Behaviors and Destination Perceptions

This study investigates the incidence of international student travel in Taiwan. It was found that Chinese, Asian and other international students behave somewhat differently from respondents in prior studies conducted in Western settings. Cultural background influenced the travel behaviors of international students as well as their perceptions of Taiwan as a tourism destination. The visiting friends and relatives (VFR) market induced by Asian respondents offers greater tourism-related potential than the travel activity that students themselves undertake. The contrary was found for non-Asian students where the student-induced VFR market is small and prospectively less attractive than the student market. The Chinese international student travel market and induced VFR market showed less potential than anticipated, perhaps because of the embryonic stage of diplomatic and commercial relations between Taiwan and mainland China.