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1 – 10 of over 1000Kristina Areskoug Josefsson and Gerd Hilde Lunde
Sexual health is insufficiently addressed in health care and higher education, which can lead to lower quality of life and negative health outcomes. To improve the situation, it…
Abstract
Purpose
Sexual health is insufficiently addressed in health care and higher education, which can lead to lower quality of life and negative health outcomes. To improve the situation, it is necessary to address both the needs of patients and professionals and collaboratively engage in finding sustainable solutions. The purpose of this paper is to explore the feasibility and value of large-scale digital coproduction in higher education.
Design/methodology/approach
A study of a project that developed seven interprofessional, digital master-level courses covering different topics related to sexual health. The project was performed through digital coproduction in higher education, with over 100 persons with various backgrounds working together online in designing content and novel digital learning activities.
Findings
Large-scale digital coproduction in higher education is feasible and valuable, but the process demands sensitive leadership, understanding of coproduction processes and willingness to learn from each other. To meet the demands from practice it is important to understand the complexity, ever-changing and unpredictable working life changes which, in turn, demands engagement in continuous learning, training activities and the need for formal education.
Originality/value
The study provides learning of the feasibility of the value of large-scale digital coproduction in higher education, which is a novel way of working in higher education.
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Andrew Cram, Stephanie Wilson, Matthew Taylor and Craig Mellare
This paper aims to identify and evaluate resolutions to key learning and teaching challenges in very large courses that involve practical mathematics, such as foundational finance.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to identify and evaluate resolutions to key learning and teaching challenges in very large courses that involve practical mathematics, such as foundational finance.
Design/methodology/approach
A design-based research approach is used across three semesters to iteratively identify practical problems within the course and then develop and evaluate resolutions to these problems. Data are collected from both students and teachers and analysed using a mixed-method approach.
Findings
The results indicate that key learning and teaching challenges in large foundational finance courses can be mitigated through appropriate consistency of learning materials; check-your-understanding interactive online content targeting foundational concepts in the early weeks; connection points between students and the coordinator to increase teacher presence; a sustained focus on supporting student achievement within assessments; and signposting relevance of content for the broader program and professional settings. Multiple design iterations using a co-design approach were beneficial to incrementally improve the course and consider multiple perspectives within the design process.
Practical implications
This paper develops a set of design principles to provide guidance to other practitioners who seek to improve their own courses.
Originality/value
The use of design-based research and mixed-method approaches that consider both student and teacher perspectives to examine the design of very large, foundational finance courses is novel.
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This study aims at assessing item fairness in students' evaluation of teaching based on students' academic college using measurement invariance analysis (MI).
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims at assessing item fairness in students' evaluation of teaching based on students' academic college using measurement invariance analysis (MI).
Design/methodology/approach
The sample of this study consists of 17,270 undergraduate students from 12 different academic colleges. SET survey consists of 20 Likert-type items distributed to four factors: planning, instruction, management and assessment was used to collect the data. The Lavaan R package with confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to evaluate measurement invariance (MI). Four models of CFA were investigated and assessed: the configural model, the metric model, the scalar model and the residual invariance model. ANOVA was used to test the differences in SET according to academic colleges.
Findings
MI analysis showed that the four levels of MI models are supported. ANOVA test showed that means of SET total scores are statistically different according to students' academic colleges. College of “Education” has the highest SET mean (88.64 out of 100), and all the differences between the College of Education’s SET mean and other colleges' SET means are statistically significant.
Practical implications
The study recommends that higher education institutions test the MI of SET according to academic colleges and then use colleges with the highest SET at the university level as internal benchmarking to develop and enhance their teaching practices.
Originality/value
This study is probably the only study that tested MI according to students' colleges before testing the differences between colleges in SET. If MI is not supported, then the comparisons between academic colleges are not applicable.
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Ariel Cornett and Erin Piedmont
Place-based, social studies teaching and learning has the potential to foster engaged citizens connected and committed to improving their communities. This study explored the…
Abstract
Purpose
Place-based, social studies teaching and learning has the potential to foster engaged citizens connected and committed to improving their communities. This study explored the research question, “In what ways do classroom and field-based experiences prepare teacher candidates (TCs) to make connections between place-based education and elementary social studies education?”
Design/methodology/approach
This qualitative case study examined how elementary TCs learned about, researched, curated and created place-based social studies educational resources related to community sites. Data collection included TCs’ Pre- and Post-Course Reflections as well as Self-Evaluations, which were analyzed using an inductive approach and multiple rounds of concept coding. Several themes emerged through data analysis.
Findings
The authors organized their findings around three themes: connections (i.e. place becomes personal), immersion (i.e. learning about place to learning in place) and bridge building (i.e. local as classroom). The classroom and field-based experiences in the elementary social studies methods course informed the ways in which TCs learned about and connected to the concept of place, experienced place in a specific place (i.e. downtown Statesboro, Georgia), and reflected upon the myriad ways that they could utilize place in their future elementary social studies classrooms.
Originality/value
TCs (as well as in-service teachers and teacher educators) must become more informed, connected and committed to places within their local communities in order to consider them as resources for elementary social studies teaching and learning.
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Joe Campbell, Kylienne Shaul, Kristina M. Slagle and David Sovic
Prior research suggests that collaboration is key to sustainable community development and environmental management, and peer-to-peer learning (P2PL) may facilitate community…
Abstract
Purpose
Prior research suggests that collaboration is key to sustainable community development and environmental management, and peer-to-peer learning (P2PL) may facilitate community building and collaborative learning skills. This study aims to examine the effect of P2PL on the enhancement of environmental management and sustainable development skills, community building and social capital (i.e. connectedness) and understanding of course learning objectives.
Design/methodology/approach
Quantitative and qualitative longitudinal survey data was collected in a sustainable development focused course offered at a large American public university that uses P2PL to explicitly facilitate community building and collaborative skills. Safety precautions and changing locational course offerings due to the COVID-19 pandemic in years 2020, 2021 and 2022 provided an opportunity to evaluate the impact of P2PL on these skills during both virtual and in-person formats. Additionally, this study compared in-course student evaluations with students taking other sustainable development-related courses with collaborative learning aspects to understand the wider effectiveness of this course structure.
Findings
This study finds that course format (virtual vs in-person) overall made no difference in either connectedness or conceptual understandings, and that students in both formats felt more connected to others than students taking other courses with P2PL. Scaffolding P2PL and supplemental peer support can yield improved connectedness and learning among students taking environmental coursework.
Originality/value
Sustainable development requires group collaboration and partnership building skills. Issues are consistently raised about the challenges to teaching these skills in higher education. The students and instructors in this research study identify P2PL strategies to address these challenges for in-person and virtual classroom settings.
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Andrei Ternikov and Mikhail Blyakher
This paper focuses on the factors related to faculty workload in the context of resource scarcity to examine whether there is a relationship between them and grade inflation.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper focuses on the factors related to faculty workload in the context of resource scarcity to examine whether there is a relationship between them and grade inflation.
Design/methodology/approach
As for methodological novelty, the authors created an indicator of students' expectations about grades that is related to grade inflation and conducted regression analysis using cluster-robust error correction based on this indicator.
Findings
The results suggested that proper workload allocation among the faculty can mitigate grade inflation. Namely, such measures as control for concurrent courses, the length of courses and the labor intensity of the faculty are suggested for grade inflation prevention.
Originality/value
Academic literature posits that a steep increase in average grades might cause a long-term depreciation of the quality of higher education. This article is, therefore, focused on various factors connected with grade inflation in higher education. The authors highlighted problems associated with teaching evaluation imperfections, academic norm transformation and workload intensity.
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This article describes an effort to ease the tension between boundary spanning roles for interns participating in a yearlong Professional Development School (PDS) program. In…
Abstract
Purpose
This article describes an effort to ease the tension between boundary spanning roles for interns participating in a yearlong Professional Development School (PDS) program. In order to do this, the structure of a Social Studies Methods course was revised to mimic a professional learning community (PLC) and assignments were not evaluated for grades.
Design/methodology/approach
A conceptual paper that relies on self-reflection as well as student reaction, work samples and survey data.
Findings
The findings demonstrate both practices contribute to a collegial and less stressful environment for interns, while not affecting the quality of work submitted.
Originality/value
This paper highlights two of the nine NAPDS essentials, Professional Learning and Leading (3) and Boundary Spanning (8), and describes the ways both are incorporated and addressed in a PDS situated methods course. Describing course revisions, including the implementation of an ungrading practice, provides examples for potential replication.
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Kuan-Cheng Lin, Nien-Tzu Li and Mu-Yen Chen
As global issues such as climate change, economic growth, social equality and the wealth gap are widely discussed, education for sustainable development (ESD) allows every human…
Abstract
Purpose
As global issues such as climate change, economic growth, social equality and the wealth gap are widely discussed, education for sustainable development (ESD) allows every human being to acquire the knowledge, skills, attitudes and values necessary to shape a sustainable future. It also requires participatory teaching and learning methods that motivate and empower learners to change their behavior and take action for sustainable development. Teachers have begun rating pupils based on peer assessment for open evaluation. Peer assessment enables students to transition from passive to active feedback recipients. The assessors improve critical thinking and encourage introspection, resulting in more significant recommendations. However, the quality of peer assessment is variable, resulting in reviewers not recognizing the remarks of other reviewers, therefore the benefits of peer assessment cannot be fulfilled. In the past, researchers frequently employed post-event questionnaires to examine the effects of peer assessment on learning effectiveness, which did not accurately reflect the quality of peer assessment in real time.
Design/methodology/approach
This study employs a multi-label model and develops a self-feedback system in order to use the AIOLPA system in the classroom to enhance students' learning efficacy and the validity of peer assessment.
Findings
The research findings indicate that the better peer assessment through the rapid feedback system, for the evaluator, encourages more self-reflection and attempts to provide more ideas, so bringing the peer rating closer to the instructor rating and assisting the evaluator. Improve self-evaluation and critical thinking for the evaluator, peers make suggestions and comments to help improve the work and support the growth of students' learning effectiveness, which can lead to more suggestions and an increase in the work’s quality.
Originality/value
ESD consequently promotes competencies like critical thinking, imagining future scenarios and making decisions in a collaborative way. This study builds an online peer assessment system with a self-feedback mechanism capable of classifying peer comments, comparing them with scores in a consistent manner and providing prompt feedback to critics.
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Lei Wen, Danya Mi and Daehyun Moon
This study aims to examine student perceptions regarding the mid-semester transition from face-to-face to online delivery in an accounting course during spring 2020.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine student perceptions regarding the mid-semester transition from face-to-face to online delivery in an accounting course during spring 2020.
Design/methodology/approach
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, numerous universities and colleges worldwide transitioned from face-to-face instruction to online delivery during spring 2020. We find some evidence in line with prior literature that COVID-19 affected student learning experience from various aspects.
Findings
Thanks in part to effective teaching techniques implemented by the instructor during the transition, including online lecture videos recorded by the instructor, online class materials, early posting of answer keys, frequent communication through emails and bonus points for watching lecture videos, students still perceived their learning outcomes positively in general.
Originality/value
These teaching techniques can be used to enhance student learning experience and satisfaction during class modality transitions in unforeseen circumstances, for both hybrid and online business courses.
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Cleide Gisele Ribeiro, Antônio Márcio Lima Ferraz Júnior, Fernanda Ribeiro Porto, Fabiana Aparecida Mayrink de Oliveira, Fernando Luiz Hespanhol and Rodrigo Guerra de Oliveira
The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic changed the way in which education was delivered in early 2020, and the impacts of these changes continue to be questionable. The aims of…
Abstract
Purpose
The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic changed the way in which education was delivered in early 2020, and the impacts of these changes continue to be questionable. The aims of this study were to evaluate: (1) the results obtained by students of the Dentistry course in the progress test carried out both before and after the pandemic, (2) the results obtained by a specific group of students who took the test in 2019–2022, and compare their results and (3) subjects that showed a reduction in the percentage of correct answers when the two tests were compared.
Design/methodology/approach
The progress test consisting of 100 multiple choice questions was applied before and after the pandemic to all students in the Dentistry course. The analyses were performed using the IBM SPSS for Statistics v.26 software program. The level of significance of 5% was adopted (<0.05).
Findings
The test was applied to 320 students in 2019 and to 272 in 2022, of whom the sample of this study was composed. The mean score values in 2019 (M = 49.10; SD = 12.03) were significantly (p = 0.026) higher than those in the year 2022 (M = 46.97; SD = 12.15), with the disciplines in the area of specific knowledge showing a greater drop in the percentage of correct answers by students. This study showed that the emergency remote education had a negative effect on the academic performance of students, based on the progress testing as an evaluation method.
Originality/value
Many studies that assessed the impacts of the pandemic on teaching were focused on the opinions of students. However, the great advantage of our study was the use of a theoretical assessment tool to verify student performance. The post-pandemic landscape beckons for comprehensive inquiries into these domains. This type of research would be valuable for gathering evidence relative to the performance of students after the emergency remote education.
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