Modificación de actitudes ante el Sida en estudiantes de enfermería. Resultados de una experiencia pedagógica.

El objetivo de este trabajo fue comprobar si una intervención pedagógica fundamentada en una metodología activa, que incluye el trabajo cooperativo y el fomento de la discusión, era capaz de modificar en sentido positivo la actitud de los estudiantes ante el VIH/SIDA. Participaron en el estudio un total de 80 estudiantes de enfermería, divididos en dos grupos; el primero de ellos, formado por 39 estudiantes, constituía el grupo de intervención, donde se llevó a cabo la experiencia pedagógica. El segundo grupo, de 41 sujetos, constituyó el grupo control. Todos los estudiantes respondieron a la Escala de Actitud ante el Sida para Enfermería (EASE) antes y después de la intervención. Los resultados muestran que se produjo un aumento positivo de la actitud ante el Sida estadísticamente significativo en el grupo de intervención, después de haber pasado por el período de formación. Por el contrario, en el grupo control, no se observaron diferencias significativas entre las dos medidas. Estos resultados confirman la eficacia de la metodología pedagógica utilizada en el cambio positivo de las actitudes de los estudiantes ante cuestiones que, como el Sida, están mediatizadas por el contexto social y cultural y que son determinantes en la calidad de su futuro trabajo como profesionales de la salud.

Anatomía Humana: estudio de las reacciones de los estudiantes de primero de medicina ante la sala de disección

Introducción: El objetivo de este estudio es reflejar las reacciones físicas y emocionales de los estudiantes de primer curso de Medicina de la Universidad de Barcelona (Campus de Bellvitge) ante la sala de disección. Material y métodos: Los estudiantes responden a tres cuestionarios que valoran la intensidad del miedo, las reacciones físicas y psicológicas frente la sala de disección y los métodos de afrontamiento, en dos momentos del curso: al inicio y al final del curso académico. Resultados: Las reacciones más frecuentes fueron la sensación de disgusto, la pérdida del apetito, las imágenes visuales recurrentes de los cadáveres, el insomnio y las pesadillas. Respecto a los métodos de afrontamiento más usados por los estudiantes para contrarrestar las reacciones adversas correspondieron en juntarse y hacer broma con los amigos, estudiar anatomía y pedir consejo a compañeros y profesores. Conclusiones: La sala de disección representa, para los estudiantes del primer curso de medicina, el primer encuentro relacionado con la muerte y ésta, a la vez, implica el desarrollo de mecanismos de adaptación en su futuro profesional. Los profesores de anatomía no solo tienen una mera función docente como transmisores de contenidos, sino que también deberían dar apoyo a la adaptación progresiva de los alumnos a la sala de disección.

Effects of math anxiety on student success in higher education

This study examines whether math anxiety and negative attitudes toward mathematics have an effect on university students" academic achievement in a methodological course forming part of their degree. A total of 193 students were presented with a math anxiety test and some questions about their enjoyment, self-confidence and motivation regarding mathematics, and their responses were assessed in relation to the grades they had obtained during continuous assessment on a course entitled"Research Design". Results showed that low performance on the course was related to math anxiety and negative attitudes toward mathematics. We suggest that these factors may affect students" performance and should therefore be taken into account in attempts to improve students" learning processes in methodological courses of this kind.

Faculty and Student Perspectives Toward Open Courseware, and Open Access Publishing: Some Comparisons Between European and North American Populations

Instructor and student beliefs, attitudes and intentions toward contributing to local open courseware (OCW) sites have been investigated through campus-wide surveys at Universidad Politecnica de Valencia and the University of Michigan. In addition, at the University of Michigan, faculty have been queried about their participation in open access (OA) publishing. We compare the instructor and student data concerning OCW between the two institutions, and introduce the investigation of open access publishing in relation to open courseware publishing.

Fair and efficient student placement with couples

We study situations of allocating positions or jobs to students or workers based on priorities. An example is the assignment of medical students to hospital residencies on the basis of one or several entrance exams. For markets without couples, e.g., for ``undergraduate student placement,'' acyclicity is a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of a fair and efficient placement mechanism (Ergin, 2002). We show that in the presence of couples, which introduces complementarities into the students' preferences, acyclicity is still necessary, but not sufficient (Theorem 4.1). A second necessary condition (Theorem 4.2) is ``priority-togetherness'' of couples. A priority structure that satisfies both necessary conditions is called pt-acyclic. For student placement problems where all quotas are equal to one we characterize pt-acyclicity (Lemma 5.1) and show that it is a sufficient condition for the existence of a fair and efficient placement mechanism (Theorem 5.1). If in addition to pt-acyclicity we require ``reallocation-'' and ``vacancy-fairness'' for couples, the so-called dictator-bidictator placement mechanism is the unique fair and efficient placement mechanism (Theorem 5.2). Finally, for general student placement problems, we show that pt-acyclicity may not be sufficient for the existence of a fair and efficient placement mechanism (Examples 5.4, 5.5, and 5.6). We identify a sufficient condition such that the so-called sequential placement mechanism produces a fair and efficient allocation (Theorem 5.3).

Cognition, Resources, and Institutions in the Explanation of Attitudes to Free Trade

This article proposes a framework for the analysis of attitudes to foreign trade policies that challenges the traditional skill-endowment approach. The traditional approach assumes informed individuals who calculate the costs and benefits of alternative policies. We propose that individuals lack information and that their positions rest on economic vulnerability, as mediated through risk-aversion. We also stress the role of environmental signals and political endorsements in guiding individuals' views on trade policy. We test this alternative approach with a Spanish survey conducted in May 2009 and the ISSP survey conducted in 2003 in a large number of less developed and more developed countries. The Spanish data show that the population is largely uninformed and that their ideas about the consequences of free trade policy do not explain attitudes among different socio-demographic groups. Meanwhile, the ISSP data contradict important aspects of the traditional approach and are consistent with the alternative approach.

Teacher strategies to elicit knowledge from students in the CLIL classroom: the purpose of questions in controlled patterns of teacher-student interaction

This Master Dissertation comprises two parts: a personal reflection and an empirical study. The personal reflection reviews the process of professionalization undergone by its author throughout the Master. The empirical study tackles teacher strategies to elicit knowledge from students in the CLIL classroom and more specifically the purpose of questions in controlled patterns of teacher-student interaction. The theories of relevant authors such as Vigotsky, Mercer and Tsui are used as a framework to analyze the data presented. The analysis shows the different strategies to elicit knowledge used by the teacher and the appropriateness of her questions in the analyzed interaction

The first steps of a secondary school teacher: experiences and studies of a student-teacher

This dissertation aims at fostering the professional development of the EFL teacher. This document compiles two small scale empirical studies carried out during the practicum periods of the TED's course. The first one is based on the role of the teacher's talk in the EFL classroom and the second one focuses on students’ small group talk, analysing the impact of cooperative learning in the EFL classroom by examining students' conversation. The following section gathers the teacher's personal reflections upon the process of professionalization. The paper concludes with a summary of the major findings and further professional improvement proposals

Local and global consistency properties for student placement

In the context of resource allocation on the basis of priorities, Ergin (2002) identifies a necessary and sufficient condition on the priority structure such that the student-optimal stable mechanism satisfies a consistency principle. Ergin (2002) formulates consistency as a local property based on a fixed population of agents and fixed resources -- we refer to this condition as local consistency and to his condition on the priority structure as local acyclicity. We identify a related but stronger necessary and sufficient condition (unit acyclicity) on the priority structure such that the student-optimal stable mechanism satisfies a more standard global consistency property. Next, we provide necessary and sufficient conditions for the student-optimal stable mechanism to satisfy converse consistency principles. We identify a necessary and sufficient condition (local shift-freeness) on the priority structure such that the student-optimal stable mechanism satisfies local converse consistency. Interestingly, local acyclicity implies local shift-freeness and hence the student-optimal stable mechanism more frequently satisfies local converse consistency than local consistency. Finally, in order for the student-optimal stable mechanism to be globally conversely consistent, one again has to impose unit acyclicity on the priority structure. Hence, unit acyclicity is a necessary and sufficient condition on the priority structure for the student-optimal stable mechanism to satisfy global consistency or global converse consistency.

Capturing and Organizing Prior Student Learning with the OCW Backpack

The purpose of this paper is to present an approach for students to have non-traditional learning assessed for credit and introduce a tool that facilitates this process. The OCW Backpack system can connect self-learners with KNEXT assessment services to obtain college credit for prior learning. An ex post facto study based on historical data collected over the past two years at Kaplan University (KU) is presented to validate the portfolio assessment process. Cumulative GPA was compared for students who received experiential credit for learning derived from personal or professional experience with a matched sample of students with no experiential learning credits. The study found that students who received experiential credits perform better than the matched sample students on GPA. The findings validate the KU portfolio assessment process. Additionally, the results support the capability of the OCW Backpack to capture the critical information necessary to evaluate non-traditional learning for university credit.

Student's watcher : comparison between ASP.NET and PHP+CSS

"Student’s Watcher” is a small Web application which wants to show in a visual, simple and fast way, the evolution of the students. The main project table displays such things as marks and comments about students. We can add a comment for each mark to explain why this mark. The objective is to be able to know if some student has a problem, how is going his year, marks in other courses, or even, to know if he has a bad week in a different subjects. We can see the evolution of students in past years to do an objective comparison. It also allows inserting global comments of student, we have a list of these, and all professors can add new ones, where we can see more general valuations. “Student’s Watcher” was begun in ASP.net, but finally my project would be developed in PHP, HTML and CSS. This project wants to be a comparison between two of most important languages used nowadays, ASPX and PHP

Using free data mining software and clustering algorithms to find predictors from student qualifications

In this project a research both in finding predictors via clustering techniques and in reviewing the Data Mining free software is achieved. The research is based in a case of study, from where additionally to the KDD free software used by the scientific community; a new free tool for pre-processing the data is presented. The predictors are intended for the e-learning domain as the data from where these predictors have to be inferred are student qualifications from different e-learning environments. Through our case of study not only clustering algorithms are tested but also additional goals are proposed.

La opinión de los estudiantes sobre su participación en la universidad

Aunque el tema de la participación en losdistintos espacios de la vida comunitariaha irrumpido con fuerza en los últimostiempos, el sector universitario apenas haincorporado el debate de la participaciónen su funcionamiento universitario. Laparticipación estudiantil ha sido, y siguesiendo en la mayoría de los casos, simbólica.En este contexto, el artículo quepresentamos profundiza en el análisis dela participación de los estudiantes en laestructura académica universitaria a partirde un estudio realizado en la Universidadde Girona. Nos centramos en los resultadosderivados de la aplicación de uncuestionario electrónico a los estudiantespara conocer sus propias percepciones ypuntos de vista en relación con su participación en la universidad. A partir deeste análisis planteamos las orientacionesy estrategias que se configuran comoelementos y recursos favorecedores de laparticipación estudiantil, tratando aspectosdiversos como la mejora de la información,la necesidad de estrategias para facilitar la adaptación de los estudiantes a la dinámica de los órganos de gobierno oel reconocimiento del carácter formativode la participación