A Questionnaire Survey on the Sense of Educational and Social Equities among College Students in China

The sense of equity reflects how fair a domain is as evaluated by those engaging in that domain. It is very meaningful to explore the sense of equity among college students, which are a special group of people. This study carried out a questionnaire survey on the sense of equity among 982 college students in China, from the perspectives of educational equity and social equity. The questions were validated by the 27/73 quantile method, and the survey results were analyzed through one-way analysis of variance (one-way ANOVA). The results showed that the college students could evaluate the sense of equity rather accurately and generally had a higher sense of equity, but failed to sense the social outcome equity well; their sense of social equity was lower than the sense of educational equity; the sense of equity varied between college students in different majors: the science majors had a lower sense of equity than those majoring in liberal arts; some college students had a misunderstanding of equity.

Effective factors in implementation and development of health promoting hospitals: a systematic review

One of the requirements for the implementation of Health Promoting Hospitals (HPHs) is comprehensive integration of health promotion (HP) activities and programs in hospital quality management system. Therefore, this systematic review was conducted utilizing a comprehensive European Foundation for Quality Managment (EFQM) model to determine appropriate criteria for the implementation and development of HPH. This systematic review considered the published literature on factors affecting the implementation and development of HPH during 1997–2016. Twenty-three articles were finalized for further investigation. EFQM was used as guidance for the investigation and analysis of studies conducted in relation to HPH. Regarding our results, real need analysis and accurate assessment of needs, attention to infrastructure factors, HPH standardization, promotion of self-care, knowledge enhancement and patient and staff skills training, improvement of quality indicators, continuous participation of HPH committee, designing HP interventions, paying attention to clinical outcome, equity in health, promoting a healthy work environment, continuity and cooperation etc. are among the factors contributing to HPH implementation and development. In case of having high capacity for successful HPH implementation, comprehensive HPH capacity building and resource development are not possible unless they are performed based on one of the framework emphasized by World Health Organization (WHO) such as EFQM.

Outcome-based grants-in-aid to local school districts: how to apply them and analyze their impacts on fiscal and outcome equity

This paper investigates whether an outcome-based school aid formula could improve fiscal and outcome equity significantly more than a typical aid formula would. When outcome-based formula is applied to foundation aid, fiscal and outcome equity deteriorates compared to Ohio's recent aid formula. However, when it is applied to power-equalizing aid, the latter improves fiscal and outcome equity more significantly than both foundation aid and Ohio's recent aid formula do. This paper further shows how to apply them to real-world cases. The lessons from this paper can be easily applied to similar grant systems with standardized test scores.

Community Colleges as Gateways and Gatekeepers: Moving beyond the Access "Saga" toward Outcome Equity

Community colleges are essential – though often overlooked – institutions of higher education. In this essay, Alicia C. Dowd draws attention to the challenges facing community colleges as they seek to balance their roles as both gateways and gatekeepers with their multiple missions, which include meeting the diverse needs of students at the postsecondary level and responding to the changing educational and economic needs of U.S. society. Using research from the California Benchmarking Project, Enhancing Institutional Effectiveness and Equity, Dowd offers insights about the ways community college leaders, staff, and partners might navigate these dual and often divergent roles. Her essay raises important questions about the nature of higher education accountability in the context of community colleges and the way these institutions are used, managed, and evaluated.