Abstract
We are excited to introduce the three pieces in issue 2 of volume 24 of the Journal of Advanced Academics. We also are pleased to see the great special issue on STEM/STEAM—scheduled for publication around this time in 2014—that is beginning to take shape in the hands of our capable guest editors Jill Adelson, Scott Chamberlain, and Eric Mann, and their contributing authors. We have a couple ideas in progress for other guest edited topical issues, and would welcome additional proposals on appropriate topics related to advanced academics.
In this issue’s article, “Early College and Dual Enrollment Challenges: Inroads and Impediments to Access”, authors Aimee Howley, MargedHowley, Craig Howley, and Tom Duncan have used a qualitative approach to investigate the cross-institutional dynamics and interactions that both enabled and constrained early-entrance and dual-enrollment programming within a consortium of high school and college partner organizations. Their findings provide a portrait that illuminates the challenges and opportunities inherent in this setting, and suggests directions for future study to increase the success of this important approach to advanced academic programming.
In “High-Achieving High School Students and Not So High-Achieving College Students: A Look at Lack of Self-Control, Academic Ability and Performance in College,” NoraHonken used structural equation modeling techniques to investigate the relationships among these factors. She determined that high school behaviors suggestive of a lack of self-control among high-achieving students were predictive of these learners’ low first-semester performance in a demanding college engineering curriculum. This work has implications for further study on how to foster continued high achievement among students who have demonstrated high ability, but who may not always show commensurate achievement.
Finally, we remind readers that the Journal has had a long tradition of publishing interviews with eminent individuals. In this issue we continue that tradition with an interview with Carol Tomlinson, conducted by her former student Echo Wu, who is now on the faculty at Murray State University. In “The Path Leading to Differentiation: An Interview with Carol Tomlinson”, Wu explores how Tomlinson became interested in differentiated instruction and in sharing with others the effective approaches she has developed for addressing the learning needs of students at varying levels of readiness—especially those in need of advanced academics. Tomlinson’s responses provide a window into this specific topic, but also offer another exemplar of our general understanding about the development of expertise.
Please keep sending us your excellent work! Because we do not currently have a backlog of accepted manuscripts, we continue to offer a very competitive time frame from submission through publication. By the time this comes out in print, we hope to have just seen many of you at the 2013 AERA convention in San Francisco at the journal’s annual board meeting. We thank you all for your continued support as we continue working to develop the Journal of Advanced Academics into the best publication of its kind!