Gerontology course in the nursing undergraduate curricula

Objective To explores nursing faculty members’ attitudes towards older people, their thoughts about gerontological nursing education. Method Five focus groups and a survey were used with nursing faculty members 132 at the three nursing schools to explore their attitudes towards the care of older people and the perceived status of gerontological nursing education. The survey was given to 132 faculty members, including 76 clinical instructors, 40 associate professors and 16 professors. The nursing faculty in general had a positive attitude toward older people (M=3.36, SD 0.25), and teachers’ attitudes were higher than those of their nursing students (M=3.18, SD0.29). Results This study results suggests that Saudi nursing curricula should include more extensive gerontology content and clinical experience with older people. Conclusion This is the first time in Saudi Arabia that research has listened to their voices and examined their commitments toward gerontology education.


RELATION BETWEEN BACKGROUND VARIABLES, VALUES AND CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

ABSTRACT Consumer perception of corporate social responsibility (CSR) can be directly influenced by individual value structures. This research aims to provide new knowledge regarding the relationship between basic human values and the public's perception of CSR. It focuses on the values of higher education students and their views regarding a particular corporate social initiative. The study reveals that social, educational, and economic circumstances influence human values. Those values in turn influence why different students perceive CSR differently. These findings are relevant to companies as they provide a more detailed understanding of why certain consumer groups perceive certain CSR initiatives the way that they do. They also suggest that universities should increase their awareness of the importance of integrating human values and CSR in the curricula of future business managers and social leaders.

Higher education of tourism in Spain and its adaptation to the European higher education area

The international tourism system has deeply undergone structural changes in the last decades which not remain outside the subsystem higher education in tourism, especially in the European case. This article has two objectives: firstly, describes the European higher education area and the objectives, skills and subjects taught in the main Spanish universities that offer higher education in tourism. On the other hand, in the light of knowledge that researchers' descriptive models, provide experience of the implementation of European credit and thorough a deeply review of the literature on the topic higher education in tourism, to propose strategies that will enable other tourism higher education systems approach to the European reality. These policy proposals are aimed at agents and elements from higher education in tourism subsystem and they specifically include: the institutions providing education in tourism, the curriculum, the teaching methods, teachers and students.

Delineamento do papel profissional dos especialistas em Educação em Saúde: uma proposta técnica

Objetivou-se apreciar as responsabilidades, competências e subcompetências dos especialistas em Educação em Saúde da Secretaria da Saúde do Estado de São Paulo, Brasil, e verificar se há ou não convergência na proposta da atuação técnica desses profissionais de saúde no Brasil e nos Estados Unidos. Utilizou-se, como base para as perguntas incluídas em questionários respondidos por educadores em saúde, o documento intitulado, "A Framework for the Development of Competency - based Curricula for Entry - Level Health Education". Os resultados descrevem o grau de importância atribuída às responsabilidades técnicas e à freqüência com que estas se realizam na rede de serviços estudada.

Common mental disorders among medical students

OBJECTIVE: Common mental disorders (CMD) have a high impact on interpersonal relationships and quality of life and are potential underlying causes for the development of more serious disorders. Medical students have been indicated as a risk population for the development of CMD. The aim of this study was to determine the frequency of CMD in undergraduate medical students and to identify related factors. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was performed in a sample population of medical students. CMD was identified according to the 20-item Self-Report Questionnaire. RESULTS: Two hundred and twenty-three students completed the questionnaire. The overall prevalence of CMD was 29.6% and its presence was independently associated with sleep disorders, not owning a car, not working and sedentary lifestyle. CONCLUSIONS: These findings indicate a high prevalence of CMD in the sample studied and are important for supporting actions to prevent mental disorders in future doctors and for reflecting on the curricula currently in use in medical schools.

ETDs, NDLTD, and open access: a 5S perspective

Worldwide initiatives toward digital library (DL) support for electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs), facilitated by the work of the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD), are a key part of the move toward open access. When all graduate students learn to use openly available ETDs, and have experience with authoring and submission in connection with their own research results, it will be easy for them to continue these efforts through other contributions to open access. When all universities support ETD activities, they will be key participants in institutional repositories and open access, and will have engaged in discussion and infrastructure development supportive of further open access activities. Understanding of open access also can be facilitated through modeling of all of these efforts using the 5S framework, considering the key aspects of DL development: Societies, Scenarios, Spaces, Structures, and Streams.

Perfil sócio-econômico dos alunos, repetência e evasão no curso de Química da UFMG

This paper describes a study about the causes for the dropout of chemistry undergraduate students at UFMG in the nineties. The students' social and economic profile was outlined. It was observed a correlation between family income and academic performance and between failure at the beginning of the course and the dropout, but it seems that family income doesn't affect markedly the dropout. The endogenous and exogenous causes contribute equally for the dropout. The authors suggest that the dropout could be significantly reduced if the endogenous causes such as large classes, inadequate curricula and programmes, poor teaching and the unapproachability on the part of the teachers were faced.

A formação do Químico

Training of highly qualified personnel is the most transversal axis among those identified in the document "Mobilizing Axes in Chemistry", published by SBQ, in 2002, which demands to deep the discussions, initiated in the symposium "The Chemist's Education", whose main objective was to discuss the repercussions of that training in the teaching and in the industrial section. After the publication of an initial paper, a couple of meetings and workshops held in Rio de Janeiro, in December 2003, involving the national chemist community, discussed the "The role of the graduate degrees in the Chemist's Education" and "The Chemist's Education", and confirmed the need to invest in the formation of qualified human resources in profusion and in all levels. Actions to be taken were delineated. Presently, the graduate programs in Chemistry are showing expressive results. However, although these professionals are mostly absorbed by the academy (the absorption of the industry is less significant), only a few programs give special attention to the didactical and pedagogical training. The regional decentralization is actually a tendency in most programs, but the interaction academy-economic activities is still a challenge. It is necessary to establish with the industrial section, the highly qualified professional's profile in Chemistry that the industry can absorb. The undergraduation is growing in number and quality, however still excessively concentrated in the Southeast area. The national "Curricula Guidelines" for Chemistry Courses, through its flexible approach, propitiate the integral, interdisciplinary (non compartmentalized) and critical-reflexive training of the professionals as citizens and as entrepreneurs. However, deficiencies are still recognized. The evaluation system of undergraduate courses has been able to identify the most fragile modalities of courses and other indicators. It was also verified that Brazilian chemistry industry absorbs minimally the highly qualified professionals, which is attributed to the fact that the Federal Council of Chemistry is vertically organized and does not recognize the graduate degrees as professional qualification. In the conclusion, it stands out, among other aspects, the importance of the effective implantation of the national curricula guidelines, bringing out courses whose didactical and pedagogical projects may offer a solid formation in Chemistry, but comprehensive and general enough to enable the Chemistry professionals to develop varied skills.

Do general chemistry textbooks facilitate conceptual understanding?

Research in chemistry education has recognized the need for facilitating students' understanding of different concepts. In contrast, most general chemistry curricula and textbooks not only ignore the context in which science progresses but also emphasize rote learning and algorithmic strategies. A historical reconstruction of scientific progress shows that it inevitably leads to controversy and debate, which can arouse students' interest and thus facilitate understanding. The objective of this article is to review research related to the evaluation of general chemistry textbooks (based on history and philosophy of science, HPS) and suggest alternatives that can facilitate conceptual understanding.

Graduação em química: avaliação, perspectivas e desafios

Poor standards in schools and the increase in the number of institutions of higher education - frequently without the due control - have adversely affected the quality of university level education in Brazil. On the other hand, evaluation of undergraduate courses, which has been carried out regularly since the min 1990's allow, within certain limits, a description of the quality Brazilian higher education courses in general, and Chemistry courses in specific. This paper evaluates the results of the national examinations (2000 and 2003's ENC, and 2005's ENADE), attrition rates for the 1990's and for the 2000-2005 period, as well as the perceptions of students and instructors that took part in those exams. Furthermore, the paper also analyzes the opinions of academics and of private sector professionals about the educational system's capacity to meet the job market's demand for skilled labor force. The actual profile of Chemistry graduates is then compared to what is demanded from them by the market, revealing deficiencies in the educational system. The expected essential curricula changes that would introduce an innovative and advanced approach in the undergraduate courses have become great challenges. In this sense, the paper seeks to reflect on questions such as: How to give informative courses a formative emphasis? Which programs should be included in the curricula to involve students in activities that require initiative and decision-making, thus fostering both learning and interest in Chemistry? How to prepare instructors for schools and for higher education? How to increase instruction in related areas without expanding the curricula excessively? How to introduce entrepreneurship in the curricula and further awareness of the professional non-academic careers in the area?

Uma estratégia adaptada para síntese de magnetita

Chemical reactions in the solid state are often not included in undergraduate chemistry curricula, due to requirements for special laboratory facilities such as ovens and precision weighing balances. This work aims to describe novel and relatively simple magnetite chemical syntheses in dry medium, which could also be used as an alternative for freshmen chemistry experiments. The proposed reaction was carried out in a muffle furnace by heating (i) a sol-gel preparation and (ii) natural hematite, under nitrogen atmosphere at 400 ºC. The synthesized magnetite was characterized with powder X-ray diffraction and Mössbauer spectroscopy. Results show that magnetite samples have chemical properties as well as crystalline structure quite similar to those of standard natural magnetite.

Um panorama sobre a abordagem ambiental no currículo de cursos de formação inicial de professores de química da região sudeste

This work analysed the contents of 701 disciplines from 22 chemistry courses that prepare chemistry teachers in 16 public Universities in Southeastern Brazil. Only a small number (23) of disciplines showed an explicit relationship between human activities and the environment. A total of 11 theoretical and 193 experimental disciplines explored to some extent scientific and technological aspects related to the environment, but did not include their relationship with society. As the experimental disciplines supposedly include some kind of waste treatment, this may explain why secondary school chemistry teachers work mainly on recycling programs and waste issues at their schools. The aim of this work is to provide information on which to base a much needed discussion about how to better prepare our chemistry teachers to act as Environmental Educators at school, as the Brazilian Education Legislation requires.

Produtividade em pesquisa do CNPq: análise do perfil dos pesquisadores da Química

The profile of the CNPq Research Productivity Program in Chemistry was studied using the Plataforma Lattes curricula of all researchers with grants in effect as of March 2009. Most of them are male (67.2%), working in Federal Universities (59.4%) and located in Southeastern Brazil (63.7%). There is no evident homogeneity among researchers of the same level/category concerning the productivity criterions used (the H index and the scientific productivity of the last five years). CNPq and the Chemistry Assessor Committee have been focusing on making their judgments unbiased, by using quantitative parameters, but such overlap is still noticeable.

A pesquisa em Ensino de Química como área estratégica para o desenvolvimento da Química

This paper presents an overview of the development of chemical education as a research area and some of its contributions to society. Although science education is a relatively recent area of research, it went through an expressive development in the last decades. As in the whole world, in Brazil also such development is attested by the expressive number of scientific societies, specialized journals, and meetings with growing attendance in the areas of science education in general and chemical education in particular. Following are the main contributions of research in science education related to chemistry teaching: adoption of teaching-learning principles in chemistry education; contextualization of chemical knowledge; interdisciplinary approach to chemistry teaching; use of the history of science for the definition of contents and for the design of curricula and teaching tools; development of specific disciplines for the initial and in-service training of chemistry teachers; publication of innovative chemistry textbooks by university-based research groups; elaboration of official guidelines for high-school level; and evaluation of chemistry textbooks to be distributed to high-school students by the Brazilian government. In spite of a positive impact of such initiatives, science education in Brazil still faces many problems, as indicated by poor results in international evaluations (such as the Program for International Student Assessment). However, changes in such a scenario depend less on the research in chemical education than on the much-needed governmental initiatives aiming at the improvement of both attractiveness of teaching career and structural conditions of public schools. In conclusion, new government investments in education are necessary for continuing the development of chemistry; moreover, scientific societies and decision makers in educational policies should take into consideration the contributions originated from the chemical education research area.

Perfil dos bolsistas PQ da área de Química baseado na Plataforma Lattes

The Lattes Platform, an information system maintained by the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq), is the main source of information on Brazilian researchers. This paper presents a scientific output profile of the CNPq Productivity Research Fellows in the Chemistry area based on the information extracted automatically from Lattes curricula in the 2002-2011 period using the language "LattesMiner". This paper also provides a comparison with the results of Santos et al. (2010). The findings confirmed that the majority of the researchers are male (67.9%), classified as category 2 (63.2%) and working in the Southeast region (60.7%).