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1 – 10 of over 5000Dimitra Christidou, Sofia Papavlasopoulou and Michail Giannakos
Governments and organizations worldwide are concerned over the declining number of young people choosing to study Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM)…
Abstract
Purpose
Governments and organizations worldwide are concerned over the declining number of young people choosing to study Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), especially after the age of 16. Research has foregrounded that students with positive attitudes toward science are more likely to find it relevant and aspire to a science career. This study aims to understand the factors shaping students’ attitudes as these are pivotal in promoting science learning.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses the framework of science capital to understand what shapes young people’s engagement with or resistance to science. The authors conducted four Computational Thinking making-based workshops with 106 children aged 15–16 years, of which 58 filled in a questionnaire and 22 were interviewed. Statistical and content analyses were performed respectively.
Findings
The results indicate that children who are more exposed to science-related activities and contexts are more likely to have higher self-efficacy, and that those with higher prior coding experience scored higher in their self-efficacy and science capital. Six themes emerged from the content analysis, highlighting the diverse factors shaping students’ attitudes, such as teaching methods, stereotypes and the degree of difficulty encountered while engaging with science in and out of school.
Originality/value
By combining qualitative and quantitative methods with the use of science capital, the authors found a number of aspects of the school experience that shape students’ attitudes to science learning in and out of school, as well as their science career aspirations.
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This study aims to examine variables and factors in vocational awareness and attitudes that affect the vocational aspiration of seafaring course students who are potential future…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine variables and factors in vocational awareness and attitudes that affect the vocational aspiration of seafaring course students who are potential future seafaring employees.
Design/methodology/approach
A literature review was conducted to identify factors that prompt students in seafaring courses to pursue seafaring careers, followed by a design of preliminary questionnaire questions to survey students’ perception on the conditions of seafaring careers (i.e. vocational awareness) and their intention to pursue a seafaring career (i.e., vocational aspiration). A total of 744 seafaring course students in four Taiwanese universities completed a questionnaire developed according to the previous studies. A structured equation modelling was conducted in this research including model validity, goodness of fit, model correction and mediation effects.
Findings
With a model consisting of four factors for vocational awareness, three factors for overall attitudes and vocational aspiration as a dependent variable, the results showed that factors of vocational awareness and students’ overall attitudes were significantly correlated, and the factors of overall attitudes exhibit strong mediation effects on vocational aspiration from vocational awareness. The results confirmed that the factors are important determinants for the vocational aspiration of students.
Originality/value
The findings of this study provide a comprehensive approach to understand students’ seafaring aspiration for the universities, governments and shipping companies. Seafaring policies and management are discussed from the research findings.
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Jouni Hintikka, Kyllikki Taipale-Erävala, Ulla Lehtinen and Leena Eskola
The purpose of the study is to clarify Finnish youth’s attitudes toward entrepreneurship and evaluate both regional and background factors influencing those attitudes.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of the study is to clarify Finnish youth’s attitudes toward entrepreneurship and evaluate both regional and background factors influencing those attitudes.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors conducted a survey of 1,497 students aged 15 to 24 years and analyzed the data using descriptive statistical analysis.
Findings
The study’s results indicate positive attitudes toward entrepreneurship among the youth. One of the notable findings of the study was the number of students who had already worked as entrepreneurs. The study also revealed background factors that affected entrepreneurial attitudes, such as regional aspects, entrepreneurial background and gender.
Practical implications
The results of this study highlight the importance of regional-level entrepreneurial education activities for increasing the vitality and entrepreneurial intentions within remote areas of Finland. This study suggests to develop new teaching methods to further raise entrepreneurial attitudes and expand gender equal entrepreneurial education programs aimed at promoting entrepreneurship, especially in remote areas.
Originality/value
The study results reveal that the attitudes of young Finnish people toward entrepreneurship seem to be at a more positive levels than indicated by earlier studies. In previous Global Entrepreneurship Monitor studies, researchers evaluated Finnish youth’s attitudes toward entrepreneurship. By contrast, this study’s data was based on the opinions of youth in the region with the youngest population in Finland, and they described the entrepreneurial attitudes of themselves and their peers.
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Wagdi Rashad Ali Bin-Hady and Abduljalil Nasr Hazaea
Existing research has examined English as a foreign language (EFL) students’ attitudes towards flipped learning. However, no study seems to have correlated students’ achievement…
Abstract
Purpose
Existing research has examined English as a foreign language (EFL) students’ attitudes towards flipped learning. However, no study seems to have correlated students’ achievement and their attitudes towards flipped learning. Yemeni EFL students also face pronunciation problems and they lack technology-enhanced language learning. The flipped learning approach promotes active learning and increases students’ learning outcomes. This study aims to measure the achievement level and the attitudes of Yemeni EFL students towards flipped pronunciation classrooms. It also correlates between achievement and attitudes towards this new experience.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a correlational research design, quantitative and qualitative data were collected through a test, questionnaire and structured interview from an intact class of Yemeni EFL students at the College of Education in Socotra.
Findings
The one-sample t-test analysis shows that the respondents scored high in the achievement test. The analysis of both the questionnaire and the structured interview revealed that the students have a positive attitude towards the flipped pronunciation classroom. The correlation analysis indicated a high-level positive relationship between students’ achievement and their attitudes where r = 0.779 with p < 0.001, two-tailed.
Research limitations/implications
The present study has some limitations regarding the sample size. This context-specific study recruited the available EFL class at the College of Education in Socotra, Hadhramout University. It would be more reliable should the study compared large groups of students so that the results can be generalized.
Practical implications
The study recommends using flipped learning to enhance pronunciation among EFL students.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the correlational studies in flipped learning.
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Young Hoon Kim and Daniel Spears
The primary purpose of this study is to examine hospitality and tourism undergraduate students' attitudes to work and career expectations as they prepare to enter the workforce in…
Abstract
Purpose
The primary purpose of this study is to examine hospitality and tourism undergraduate students' attitudes to work and career expectations as they prepare to enter the workforce in the hospitality industry in both the United States and South Korea.
Design/methodology/approach
The measurement instrument was developed from previous studies (Chen and Shen, 2012; Kong, 2013) and included questions related to job attitudes, job satisfaction, job motivations, job involvement, and career expectations and aspirations upon graduation. T-tests were conducted first for the mean values of the constructs between the United States and South Korea to ensure the comparison of two different cultural groups.
Findings
First, students from the United States (US) have more and better work attitude than those students from South Korea. Second, students from South Korea appear to be less motivated to work and less satisfied with their current jobs and earnings than students from the US. Third, the results also have managerial implications for both countries. It is very important to know that higher grade point average is not an answer to find the right person but more likely, positive attitudes to work and higher levels of job involvement are more likely to have higher job expectations and aspirations for employment in the industry.
Originality/value
This study adds to the hospitality literature by examining the different perspectives of hospitality and tourism undergraduate students from the US and South Korea, specifically examining their attitudes toward work, job satisfaction, work involvement and job expectations as they prepare for careers in the industry. The results of this study help stakeholders (i.e. students, educators and practitioners) in the hospitality and tourism industry gain a better understanding of their undergraduate students as they prepare for careers in the industry. In addition, the study contributed to understanding cultural differences present among hospitality and tourism students from individualist and collectivist cultures.
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This paper analyzes the attitudes Saudi university students hold toward Western culture. Saudi participants completed an open-ended questionnaire about attitudes toward Western…
Abstract
This paper analyzes the attitudes Saudi university students hold toward Western culture. Saudi participants completed an open-ended questionnaire about attitudes toward Western culture, consisting of five open-ended questions. This paper presents questionnaire responses from 210 university students in Saudi Arabia (male and female). This paper finds that most of these students are integratively motivated and therefore show a positive disposition toward Western culture. It also shows a correlation between instrumental motivation and students who study on science and engineering tracks. The study shows that a clear majority of students like some aspect of the West or Western culture. The study concludes that these Saudi students are predisposed to interact favorably with the West.
Macarena Torroba Diaz, Anna Bajo-Sanjuan, Ángela María Callejón Gil, Ana Rosales-Pérez and Lidia López Marfil
This study aims to build a model for the analysis of the environmental behavior of university students.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to build a model for the analysis of the environmental behavior of university students.
Design/methodology/approach
A partial least square method was adopted, and a questionnaire on intelligence, knowledge, attitude and environmental behavior was performed on 480 Spanish university students.
Findings
The results indicate that environmental intelligence positively affects university students’ environmental behavior through environmental knowledge and attitude.
Research limitations/implications
The conclusions of the present study are based on a sample drawn from Spanish university students. Therefore, new studies are needed to cover other educational institutions and cultural contexts.
Practical implications
Many university students’ environmental behavior depends on implementing educational actions that improve their environmental intelligence and knowledge.
Social implications
The study suggests that educational programs should implement strategies that maintain a sense of responsibility toward the sustainable development of university students, ensuring that future generations can live a quality life in a sustainable and safe environment.
Originality/value
The present study identifies the mechanism through which the environmental behavior of university students is formed.
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Aline Bento Ambrósio Avelar and Milton Carlos Farina
This study aims to describe the development and validation of a scale that measures the self-reported sustainable behavior of students in higher education institutions (HEIs…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to describe the development and validation of a scale that measures the self-reported sustainable behavior of students in higher education institutions (HEIs) regarding their knowledge on incorporating sustainability into education, research and outreach, mediated by the attitude toward the triple bottom line.
Design/methodology/approach
The scale was applied to students from HEIs, with a total of 759 valid cases and respondents from various countries. The technique used was structural equation modeling and multigroup analysis using the SmartPLS software.
Findings
Respondents’ self-reported sustainable behavior scale was affected by their economic attitude and the knowledge about sustainability that they assimilated. However, the economic dimension received more attention from the participating students. Both for the total sample and for respondents older than the study average, environmental attitude and social attitude did not affect the self-reported sustainable behavior.
Research limitations/implications
The study’s limitations can offer opportunities for future research, as more constructs should be inserted into the model to check the existence of differences in relation to self-reported sustainable behavior, such as beliefs in the affective stage.
Practical implications
The practical implication is on the fact that HEIs can use the scale of self-reported sustainable behavior to evaluate the incorporation of sustainability in the students behavior. Thus, with appropriate guidelines, HEIs will be able to analyze the results looking for to achieve balance in the incorporation of sustainability in education, research and outreach in a transdisciplinary way, improving HEI program and preparing future decision-makers to collaborate for sustainable development.
Originality/value
The originality of the study is on the verification of the influence of sustainability teaching in higher institutions through self-reported sustainable behavior scale, based on the sustainable development goals in three dimensions – cognitive, affective and conative.
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Yoonah Kim Conoly, Mike von Massow and Yee Ming Lee
This study aims to investigate how domestic and international undergraduate students from a university in Ontario, Canada, defined locally grown food and examined the factors…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate how domestic and international undergraduate students from a university in Ontario, Canada, defined locally grown food and examined the factors behind their locally grown food purchase intentions.
Design/methodology/approach
Questionnaires were distributed in the School of Hospitality, Food, and Tourism Management undergraduate classes. A total of 196 complete surveys were returned. Using multiple regression analysis and theory of planned behavior (TPB) as a theoretical framework with an additional construct, moral norm, proposed hypotheses were tested.
Findings
Domestic students narrowly defined locally grown food based on distance (e.g. food grown/raised within 100 km of where a person lives) compared to international students (e.g. food grown in Canada). The multiple regression analysis revealed that 36% of variance in purchase intention is explained by the four independent variables (i.e. student status, attitude, perceived product availability and moral norm), with perceived product availability as the strongest predictor of intention to purchase locally grown food.
Research limitations/implications
The convenience sampling method limitations are as follows. First, the sample size was small for international students. Second, there was a possibility of underrepresentation of certain origins of international student populations. Third, the undergraduate respondents were from the School of Hospitality, Food and Tourism. Finally, another limitation is that the four variables in this study (i.e. attitudes, subjective norms, perceived product availability, and moral norm) only explained 36% of the variance of this model.
Practical implications
Perceived product availability, moral norm and attitude constructs positively influenced the locally grown food purchase intention. A perceived product availability construct revealed the strongest influence in locally grown food purchase intention of students. Particularly, five key questions were created based on the major research findings of this study, which can be used as a guideline for locally grown food providers and farmers when promoting locally grown food to students. These questions include: Where can I find it? When can I find it? Who grows it? How can I benefit others? Why is it good for me?
Social implications
The results of this study shown that which factors influence locally grown food purchase intention of students. Hence, local restaurateurs and university dining facilities may incorporate these factors in their marketing message to serve students population better who might be interested in buying food products using locally grown ingredients. Research results also allow local farmers to communicate and inform their current and potential student consumers about the advantages of locally grown food. Overall, findings can contribute to economy and business of local community.
Originality/value
Current research findings verified that there is a significant use of a moral norm construct to predict locally grown food purchase intention of students. The moral norm construct positively influenced the locally grown food purchase intention in this study, and this construct seemed useful to predict locally grown food purchase intention of students. Additionally, the research discovered that there were differences in domestic and international undergraduate students' perception in the locally grown food definition.
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Laila Suleiman Al-Rawahi and Abdu Mohammad Al-Mekhlafi
The present study investigated the effect of online collaborative project-based learning on the language performance and attitudes of intermediate level students at the College of…
Abstract
The present study investigated the effect of online collaborative project-based learning on the language performance and attitudes of intermediate level students at the College of Applied Sciences in Oman. The study is a quasi-experimental study and the sample consisted of four classes (93 students in total) in Nizwa College of Applied Sciences. These participants were in their foundation year and were taking the Academic English Course during the time of the research experiment. Two classes were assigned to the experimental group (46 students) and they were directed to collaborate online in doing their research projects. The other two classes were assigned to the control group (47 students) and did their projects individually. A language test containing reading and writing questions, an attitude questionnaire, students' project scores and transcripts of focused group discussions were used to collect the data needed to answer the research questions. The study revealed that the main positive effect of online collaborative project-based learning was clear on students' writing skill in the post test (i.e. students in the experimental group outperformed students in the control group).