Academy of Educational Leadership Journal

To Consolidate or Not to Consolidate, That Is the Question: Optimal School Size and Teacher Incentive Contracts

Given the realities of ever-tightening public budgets and the directives inherent in the No Child Left Behind Act (2001) school districts have been required to do more (with more direct accountability) with less (funding) than ever before. These two forces are, of course, conflicting. One approach to the funding dilemma has districts consolidating schools in order to pool enrollment and resources, in an attempt to reduce pressure to increase class size that would likely reduce student achieve...

Strategically Planning Campuses for the 'Newer Students' in Higher Education

The "traditional" 18 - 22 year old, residential college student makes up only 16% of the students enrolled in public and private two- and four-year institutions. More than half of today's students are older and are taking classes part-time. Over a million attend for-profit institutions and millions more participate in postsecondary education experiences offered by corporate universities. Most work full or part-time, have little interest in out-of-class activities, and are very savvy about com...

Job Order Costing: A Simulation and Vehicle for Conceptual Discussion

This paper offers a hands-on approach to teaching job order costing in introductory managerial accounting or in cost accounting. It is motivated by the belief that students would have a better appreciation of how goods and costs flow in a manufacturing firm through an experiential learning exercise as opposed to passive learning methods such as reading a text description or listening to a lecture. The exercise involves the simulated manufacture of a table from the purchase of raw materials th...

Factors Influencing the University Selection of International Students

The number of international students pursuing secondary education at United States (U.S.) universities has been increasing over the past 25 years, and is expected to continue into the foreseeable future. However, these students have a plethora of choices among universities in the U.S. and foreign countries. Universities must distinguish themselves if they hope to obtain the most desirable students from around the world. Previous research by Agarwal and Winkler (1985), Lee and Tan (1984), Mazz...

Creating Active Learning Applications and Opportunities for an On-Line Leadership Course

This paper describes the creation of an on-line leadership course that retained as much of the rich, interactive nature of the face-to-face version as possible. The seven "best practice" design criteria offered by Chickering and Reisser (1993) are discussed as they relate to specific course design and instructional requirements for instructor orientation, course management organization and tool use, community building as well as the development of thematic modules and their associated assignm...

What Is a Better Predictor of Success in an Mba Program: Work Experience or the Gmat?

The goal of this study was to determine if work experience might be a better predictor of success than a GMAT score by examining how successful students have been in an MBA program in a suburban metropolitan university. Success in the MBA program was measured by overall GPA for students completing the program. The study also examined the benefits of offering a GMAT Waiver to individuals with significant and leadership experience. Other characteristics, such as age, gender, race, undergraduate...

Factors Influencing Student Performance in the Introductory Management Science Course

The introductory management science course is a core requirement for many undergraduate students majoring in business. In general, it is considered to be a challenging course having high withdrawal and failure rates. The purpose of this paper is to examine factors that influence the performance of students in the introductory management science course. To evaluate these factors, a study was conducted over a two-year period covering around 300 students from business and other majors at Hampton...

Moving Towards a Culturally Diverse Accounting Profession

This paper discusses the increasing diversity in the accounting profession. Evidence is presented substantiating that over one third of recent accounting graduates are from ethnic minority backgrounds, the majority of whom are Asian/Pacific Islanders. In our university specific data, we find an even higher percentage (71%) of ethnic minorities receiving accounting degrees, with Asian/Pacific Islanders as the majority group. We also show that over one fourth of new accounting graduates hired b...