Pharmacy Students’ Views of Faculty Feedback on Academic Performance

Objective: To investigate students' views on and satisfaction with faculty feedback on their academic performance.

Methods: A 41-item survey instrument was developed based on a literature review relating to effective feedback. All pharmacy undergraduate students were invited via e-mail to complete the self-administered electronic questionnaire relating to their views on feedback, including faculty feedback received to date regarding their academic performance.

Results: A response rate of 61% (343/561) was obtained. Only 32.3% of students (107/331) agreed that they were satisfied with the feedback they received; dissatisfaction with examination feedback was particularly high. The provision of faculty feedback was perceived to be variable in terms of quality and quantity.

Conclusions: There are some inconsistencies relating to provision of feedback within the MPharm degree program at Queen's University Belfast. Further work is needed to close the gap between student expectations and the faculty's delivery of feedback on academic performance.

An Evaluation of the Effectiveness of an FE/HE Partnership in the Delivery of a Preparation for Practice Module within an Undergraduate Social Work Degree Programme

The Preparation for Practice module at the University of Ulster is delivered to 170 first year students via a collaborative arrangement between higher and further education institutions. In each of the five sites, students receive large group and small group teaching facilitated by social work training agency workers and academic tutor dyads. An evaluation of the module sought the perceptions of the agency and academic facilitators regarding the overall collaborative arrangement and the model of co-teaching involving social work academics and agency partners. Respondents were asked to complete a semi-structured questionnaire, which generated data from a Likert scale and also invited qualitative commentary. The Likert scale data were analysed via SPSS and the qualitative information was scrutinised using a manual thematic analysis technique. Findings indicated that continuous communication, consistency in programme content and the acknowledgement of the differences in organisation resources were key to a successful collaborative arrangement. It was also noted that a co-teaching model should be viewed as a positive vehicle for achieving module objectives in a safe learning environment.

Hierarchy as a barrier to advancement for women in academic medicine

Background: Research on barriers to professional advancement for women in academic medicine has not adequately considered the role of environmental factors and how the structure of organizations affects professional advancement and work experiences. This article examines the impact of the hierarchy, including both the organization's hierarchical structure and professionals' perceptions of this structure, in medical school organization on faculty members' experience and advancement in academic medicine. Methods: As part of an inductive qualitative study of faculty in five disparate U.S. medical schools, we interviewed 96 medical faculty at different career stages and in diverse specialties, using in-depth semistructured interviews, about their perceptions about and experiences in academic medicine. Data were coded and analysis was conducted in the grounded theory tradition. Results: Our respondents saw the hierarchy of chairs, based on the indeterminate tenure of department chairs, as a central characteristic of the structure of academic medicine. Many faculty saw this hierarchy as affecting inclusion, reducing transparency in decision making, and impeding advancement. Indeterminate chair terms lessen turnover and may create a bottleneck for advancement. Both men and women faculty perceived this hierarchy, but women saw it as more consequential. Conclusions: The hierarchical structure of academic medicine has a significant impact on faculty work experiences, including advancement, especially for women. We suggest that medical schools consider alternative models of leadership and managerial styles, including fixed terms for chairs with a greater emphasis on inclusion. This is a structural reform that could increase opportunities for advancement especially for women in academic medicine. © 2010 Copyright Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.

Dealing with a problem that doesn't exist?:Professional responses to female perpetrated child sexual abuse

Female involvement in sexual offences against children is more common than is generally thought and has serious implications for the long-term emotional and psychological well-being of victims. Drawing on findings from: a comprehensive review of the literature; an overview of relevant literature and legislation; and an electronic survey of Multi-Agency Public Protection Panels; this paper explores the criminal justice response to female sex offending in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The literature highlights that the way in which professionals identify and respond to child sexual abuse has been shown to be influenced by the gender of the perpetrator. Equally, whilst similar to male sex offending in terms of the intrusiveness and seriousness of the abuse, some aspects of female sex offending can cause particular problems for professionals. The fact that some sexual abuse can be disguised as childcare can make it difficult for professionals to identify this type of abuse whilst high rates of co-offending bring additional difficulties in determining the degree of female involvement and assigning responsibility. The survey findings indicate that risk assessment tools for female sex offenders is a key area requiring development and point towards small inconsistencies in the current practice of risk assessing females in the community. The survey also identifies the lack of treatment programmes for this group of offenders as well as drawing attention to the need for national policies and procedures, staff training and the identification of areas of good practice. Increased discussion and debate about how best to work with this group of sex offenders is also required. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The efficacy of a CDIO based integrated curriculum as preparation for professional practice in product design and development

The School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Queen’s University Belfast started BEng and MEng degree programmes in Product Design and Development (PDD) in 2004. Intended from the outset to be significantly different from the existing programmes within the School the PDD degrees used the syllabus and standards defined by the CDIO Initiative as the basis for an integrated curriculum. Students are taught in the context of conceiving, designing, implementing and operating a product. Fundamental to this approach is a core sequence of Design-Build-Test (DBT) experiences which facilitates the development of a range of professional skills as well as the immediate application of technical knowledge gained in strategically aligned supporting modules.
The key objective of the degree programmes is to better prepare students for professional practice. PDD graduates were surveyed using a questionnaire developed by the CDIO founders and interviewed to examine the efficacy of these degree programmes, particularly in this key objective. Graduate employment rates, self assessment of graduate attributes and examples of work produced by MEng graduates provided positive evidence that their capabilities met the requirements of the profession. The 24% questionnaire response rate from the 96 graduates to date did not however facilitate statistically significant conclusions to be drawn and particularly not for BEng graduates who were under represented in the response group. While not providing proof of efficacy the investigation did provide a good amount of useful data for consideration as part of a continuous improvement process.

Law and Society: Volume III: Legal Processes and Professional Groups within the Legal Field

The thriving and well-established field of Law and Society (also referred to as Socio-legal Studies) has diverse methodological influences; it draws on social-scientific and arts-based methods. The approach of scholars researching and teaching in the field often crosses disciplinary borders, but, broadly speaking, Law and Society scholarship goes behind formalism to investigate how and why law operates, or does not operate as intended, in society. By exploring law’s connections with broader social and political forces—both domestic and international—scholars gain valuable perspectives on ideology, culture, identity, and social life. Law and Society scholarship considers both the law in contexts, as well as contexts in law.
Law and Society flourishes today, perhaps as never before. Academic thinkers toil both on the mundane and the local, as well as the global, making major advances in the ways in which we think both about law and society. Especially over the last four decades, scholarly output has rapidly burgeoned, and this new title from Routledge’s acclaimed Critical Concepts in Law series answers the need for an authoritative reference collection to help users make sense of the daunting quantity of serious research and thinking.
Edited by the leading scholars in the field, Law and Society brings together in four volumes the vital classic and contemporary contributions. Volume I is dedicated to historical antecedents and precursors. The second volume covers methodologies and crucial themes. The third volume assembles key works on legal processes and professional groups, while the final volume of the collection focuses on substantive areas. Together, the volumes provide a one-stop ‘mini library’ enabling all interested researchers, teachers, and students to explore the origins of this thriving sub discipline, and to gain a thorough understanding of where it is today.

Determinants of academic cheating behavior: The future for accountancy in Ireland

This paper considers the potential for improving the reputation of the Irish accountancy profession by exploring undergraduate accounting students’ intolerance of academic cheating as a predictor of future attitudes to unethical workplace practices. The study reports that females are significantly more intolerant of cheating than males. Further, with regard to ethical ideology, idealism was found to have a significant positive association with intolerance of cheating while relativism reported no association. It is anticipated that the growing admission of women to professional accountancy membership together with educational intervention to increase idealism may improve ethical attitudes and help restore the profession's reputation.

An accelerated method of developing DBT projects using CDIO partner institutions as parallel processors

The cycle of the academic year impacts on efforts to refine and improve major group design-build-test (DBT) projects since the time to run and evaluate projects is generally a full calendar year. By definition these major projects have a high degree of complexity since they act as the vehicle for the application of a range of technical knowledge and skills. There is also often an extensive list of desired learning outcomes which extends to include professional skills and attributes such as communication and team working. It is contended that student project definition and operation, like any other designed product, requires a number of iterations to achieve optimisation. The problem however is that if this cycle takes four or more years then by the time a project’s operational structure is fine tuned it is quite possible that the project theme is no longer relevant. The majority of the students will also inevitably experience a sub-optimal project experience over the 5 year development period. It would be much better if the ratio were flipped so that in 1 year an optimised project definition could be achieved which had sufficient longevity that it could run in the same efficient manner for 4 further years. An increased number of parallel investigators would also enable more varied and adventurous project concepts to be examined than a single institution could undertake alone in the same time frame.
This work-in-progress paper describes a parallel processing methodology for the accelerated definition of new student DBT project concepts. This methodology has been devised and implemented by a number of CDIO partner institutions in the UK & Ireland region. An agreed project theme was operated in parallel in one academic year with the objective of replacing a multi-year iterative cycle. Additionally the close collaboration and peer learning derived from the interaction between the coordinating academics facilitated the development of faculty teaching skills in line with CDIO standard 10.

On Being Let Loose in the Field: The Execution of Professional Ethics

In recent years concerns over litigation and the trend towards close monitoring of academic activity has seen the effective hijacking of research ethics by university managers and bureaucrats. This can effectively curtail cutting edge research as perceived ‘safe’ research strategies are encouraged. However, ethics is about more than research governance. Ultimately, it seeks to avoid harm and to increase benefits to society. Rural development debate is fairly quiet on the question of ethics, leaving guidance to professional bodies. This study draws on empirical research that examined the lives of migrant communities in Northern Ireland. This context of increasingly diverse rural development actors provides a backdrop for the way in which the researcher navigates through ethical issues as they unfold in the field. The analysis seeks to relocate ethics from being an annoying bureaucratic requirement to one where it is inherent to rigorous and professional research and practice. It reveals how attention to professional ethics can contribute to effective, situated and reflexive practice, thus transforming ethics to become an asset to professional researchers.

Alcohol, Tobacco and Pharmacy Students: Usage and Views on Professional Issues

Introduction/background: This study aimed to ascertain pharmacy students’ use and views on cigarettes and alcohol (including in relation to provision of health promotion advice) and to establish if alcohol intake affected academic performance. Within the United Kingdom (UK), there has been limited research conducted in this area
Methods: Following ethical approval, pharmacy students (n=581) were invited to participate in a pre-piloted electronic questionnaire, consisting of 21 questions on smoking and alcohol. Descriptive statistics and non-parametric tests were used for data analyses.
Results: A response rate of 64.5% (375/581) was obtained (69.9% female, 30.2% male). Many respondents (77.9%) reported that they drank alcohol; whereas only 3.7% stated they currently smoked cigarettes. Students who drank alcohol were more likely to fail elements of the program than those who did not. Less than half (47.8%) were in agreement that it was hypocritical for a pharmacist to give health promotion advice and then get drunk outside of work.
Discussion/conclusions: Students seem to consider that lifestyle recommendations are less relevant for themselves and also that a pharmacist’s responsibility centers on providing advice, rather than being a role-model. Alcohol consumption appears to negatively influence academic achievement.

Empathy in UK pharmacy students: assessing differences by gender, level in the degree programme, part-time employment and medical status

Background: Empathy is an important aspect of patient–healthcare professional interactions.Aims: To investigate whether gender, level in the degree programme, employment and health status affected empathy scores of undergraduate pharmacy students.Method: All undergraduate pharmacy students (n=529) at Queen’s University Belfast were invited via email to completean online validated empathy questionnaire. Empathy scores were calculated and non-parametric tests used to determine associations between factors.Results: Response rate was 60.1% (318/529) and the mean empathy score was 106.19. Scores can range from 20 to 140,with higher scores representing a greater degree of empathy. There was no significant difference between genders (p=0.211). There was a significant difference in scores across the four levels of the programme (p<0.001); scores were lowest at Level 1 and greatest at Level 4 (final year). There were no significant differences in scores for respondents who had a part-time job, a chronic condition, or took regular medication in comparison to those who did not (p=0.028,p=0.880, p=0.456, respectively).Conclusion: A reasonable level of empathy was found relative to other studies; this could be further enhanced at lower levels of the degree pathway.

Academic and Practitioners perspectives on Organisation Development – a UK study

This paper reports on a research study to identify the nature of the profession of Organisation Development (OD) in the UK and how it has evolved over four decades. The study is designed to compare academic perspectives on OD with what is happening in the professional practice world. Three forms of data were collected for this study, content analysis of job advertisements from a four decade period, a bibliometric search and interviews with subject experts. The findings were analysed through the theory lens of institutional theory, the dissemination of ideas and fads and fashions in management. Emerging insights are that there is a difference between academic and practitioners development of the OD profession in the UK. The reasons for the difference have been explored in the discussion.

Stress, suporte social, optimismo e saúde em estudantes de enfermagem em ensino clínico

O stress é um processo presente nas vivências do quotidiano dos indivíduos com implicações a nível do seu bem-estar e saúde. No caso específico dos estudantes de Enfermagem, o ensino clínico tem sido identificado como uma componente de formação geradora de elevados níveis de stress. O presente estudo tem como principal objectivo analisar as inter-relações que se estabelecem entre a percepção de situações de stress, saúde, coping, suporte social, auto-estima e optimismo-pessimismo. Pretende-se construir e validar dois instrumentos, um de avaliação das situações indutoras de stress em ensino clínico de Enfermagem (ECE) e outro de avaliação dos sintomas de stress. Outro objectivo consiste em traduzir e adaptar duas escalas, uma de avaliação da auto-estima e outra do optimismo-pessimismo. Pretende-se ainda estudar referidos constructos em função de variáveis sócio-demográficas e de caracterização do ensino clínico realizado. O estudo desenvolvido, de natureza quantitativo, correlacional e transversal, baseou-se numa amostra de 1283 estudantes do Curso de Licenciatura em Enfermagem, de cinco Escolas Superiores de Saúde da Região Centro de Portugal. Foi utilizado um protocolo de investigação constituído por 7 instrumentos: Caracterização sócio-demográfica e do ECE, Escala de Stress em ECE, Escala de Sintomas de Stress, Questionário de Estratégias de Coping, Escala de Satisfação com o Suporte Social, Escala de Auto-Estima e Escala de Optimismo-Pessimismo. Os resultados obtidos sugerem que, ao nível das escalas, tanto as construídas no âmbito deste trabalho, como as traduzidas apresentam validade e valores satisfatórios ao nível da fidelidade, constituindo-se então como instrumentos adequados e úteis para o estudo dos constructos em questão. As situações percebidas como geradoras de maior stress referem-se à avaliação, aspectos pessoais e gestão do tempo e do trabalho. Em termos de sintomas de stress, os mais frequentes são de natureza física e cognitivoemocional. Em termos de estratégias de coping, os estudantes parecem recorrer com mais frequência às estratégias centradas nos problemas. Os estudantes da nossa amostra referem uma maior satisfação a nível do suporte social com a intimidade e evidenciam níveis positivos em termos de autoestima e optimismo. O sexo dos estudantes, o ano de frequência do curso e variáveis de caracterização do ECE exercem um efeito diferencial nas problemáticas em estudo. Consideramos que a identificação das situações indutoras de stress em ECE, bem como a avaliação dos seus efeitos na saúde dos estudantes e a compreensão dos mecanismos de coping podem contribuir para o desenvolvimento de programas de gestão e controlo do stress que os capacitem para transformar os desafios em potenciais situações de desenvolvimento pessoal, social, académico e profissional.

Ofício: ser professora - do projeto educativo ao sucesso escolar

O Despacho n.º 40/2011, de 20 de maio, ponto 3., da Universidade de Évora, prevê a possibilidade de elaboração de um relatório sobre a atividade profissional para aquisição do grau académico de mestre. Essa foi a minha opção. Este relatório reporta-se aos anos letivos de 2007/2012, correspondentes aos últimos cinco anos de trabalho. É uma reflexão sobre as medidas desenvolvidas no Agrupamento de Escolas de Alvalade, com vista a melhorar os níveis de sucesso escolar e a importância do projeto educativo para alcançar tal objetivo, apresentando ainda dados sobre o sucesso/insucesso. Enquanto diretora de um agrupamento de escolas cuja taxa de insucesso à data da tomada de posse rondava os 18%, abracei como objetivo principal, mobilizar toda a comunidade educativa, para reverter essa situação calamitosa. Após várias medidas implementadas, os resultados melhoraram para 5,98%, em 2011/2012. Muito trabalho foi feito e muitos projetos foram adotados; ABSTRACT: The University Dispatch n. º 40/2011 of may 20th, paragraph 3., University of Évora, provides for the possibility of drafting a report about my professional activity in order to acquire a master's degree. That was my choice. This report refers to the work that I have been developing in the last academic years of 2007/2012. It is a reflection on action in the Alvalade Group of Schools, about the measures that were implemented to improve levels of educational attainment and educational importance of the project to achieve this goal, presenting, nevertheless, data on the success/failure. When I became director of a group of schools, which failure rate at the date of inauguration was around 18%, I decided to delineate as my main goal, to mobilize the entire educational community, to reverse this calamitous situation. After several measures implemented, the students’ failure decreased up to 5,98% in 2011/2012. Much work has been done and many projects were adopted.

Formação de professores de ciências para o uso de tecnologias

Na atualidade, torna-se premente que os alunos exerçam um papel ativo face a problemáticas de cariz científico e tecnológico na sociedade em que se inserem. Neste contexto, tem sido recomendada a promoção da Educação em Ciências, com orientação Ciência-Tecnologia-Sociedade (CTS) para o desenvolvimento da Literacia científica dos alunos, em particular, do Ensino Básico (EB). As Tecnologias da Informação e Comunicação (TIC) têm-se assumido, cada vez mais, como recursos privilegiados para os alunos aprenderem ciências. Portanto, é fundamental que os professores de Ciências do EB considerem os aspetos pedagógico-didáticos relacionados com a integração das TIC no processo de ensino e aprendizagem (E/A) das Ciências. No entanto, vários estudos têm revelado que a maioria dos professores parece não integrar as TIC no processo de E/A, o que se relaciona, entre outros obstáculos, com a falta de formação a este nível. Por outro lado, em Portugal, são escassos os estudos relacionados com a formação de professores de Ciências do EB para o uso de TIC no processo de E/A, com orientação CTS. O presente estudo tem como finalidade a criação de uma proposta de esquema referencial para o desenvolvimento de programas de formação (PF) de professores de Ciências do EB com orientação CTS (inicial, contínua e pós-graduada), com vista ao desenvolvimento de “competências TIC” destes (futuros) profissionais. Para tal, procurou-se responder a duas questões de investigação: Que componentes curriculares privilegiar em PF de professores do EB, que contribuam para o desenvolvimento de competências de integração das tecnologias no processo de E/A, em geral, e das Ciências, em particular?; e Qual o contributo de um PF na promoção de práticas pedagógico-didáticas com orientação CTS de Professores de Ciências do EB? O estudo organizou-se em duas fases. A Fase I designou-se “Formação de Professores do Ensino Básico em Tecnologia Educativa”, decorreu entre janeiro de 2009 e novembro de 2009, e teve um caráter exploratório com vista a descrever estratégias para a promoção do desenvolvimento pessoal, social e profissional, em particular, na dimensão do Conhecimento Pedagógico Tecnológico de Conteúdo (CPTC), de estudantes/professores do EB (inicial, contínua e pós-graduada). O CPTC representa o conhecimento de professores do EB para integrar as TIC no processo de E/A das Ciências, de acordo com a Perspetiva de Ensino por Pesquisa (EPP). A recolha de dados envolveu: a análise documental de vinte e três unidades curriculares (UC) de Tecnologia Educativa (TE) de Cursos de Educação Básica (1.º Ciclo de Bolonha), de dezassete Instituições de Ensino Superior Público Português; e o inquérito por entrevista a quatro Investigadores Portugueses em TE. A análise de conteúdo do corpus recolhido possibilitou a identificação dos componentes curriculares a privilegiar em PF de professores do EB neste âmbito, tais como: i) a “competência digital” de “pesquisa, seleção e organização de informação”; ii) a “competência pedagógica com TIC” de “planificação e/ou implementação de atividades de E/A”; iii) a “competência pedagógica com TIC de nível avançado” de reflexão crítica; iv) o conteúdo curricular centrado na colaboração online; v) a estratégia/atividade de E/A de trabalho de projeto; vi) o cenário de E/A misto (b-learning); vii) as ferramentas da web 2.0 (ex. Blog); e viii) a avaliação formativa de portefólios digitais desenvolvidos pelos estudantes/professores do EB em formação. A Fase II denominou-se “Formação de Professores de Ciências do Ensino Básico com Orientação CTS”, decorreu entre dezembro de 2009 e maio de 2011, e teve um caráter interventivo, com o intuito de conceber, produzir, implementar e avaliar um PF com esta orientação. O PF foi integrado nas UC de “TIC e Educação em Ciências” (TIC_EC) e de “Didática das Ciências Integradas II” (DCI_II) do Mestrado em Didática, área de especialização das Ciências, da Universidade de Aveiro (no 2.º semestre do ano letivo 2009/2010). O Mestrando dirigiu-se a um público profissionalizado, em particular, Educadores de Infância, Professores do 1.º CEB e Professores de Matemática e Ciências Naturais do 2.º CEB. A avaliação do PF foi contínua durante todo o seu processo de desenvolvimento, o que implicou a recolha das perceções dos principais envolvidos (os dois Docentes de DCI_II e de TIC_EC, os nove Mestrandos, um especialista externo em TE e a Investigadora do estudo). Para tal recorreu-se ao inquérito por questionário e por entrevista, à observação participante da Investigadora e à análise dos portefólios digitais desenvolvidos pelos Mestrandos durante o PF. A avaliação final do PF ocorreu no final do mesmo e dez meses após a formação ter terminado (maio de 2011). A análise de conteúdo do corpus recolhido permitiu demonstrar que o PF foi exequível e eficaz no contexto em que se projetou, o que se comprova na evidência de práticas pedagógico-didáticas de utilização das TIC no processo de E/A das Ciências, com orientação CTS, por parte de Mestrandos envolvidos no PF. O esquema referencial resultante do estudo integra a “estratégia de investigação conduzida pelo professor”, pressupõe a sinergia entre as áreas científicas da Didática das Ciências (DC) e da TE, e implica a integração da dimensão do CPTC ao nível da formação de professores de Ciências do EB (inicial, contínua e pós-graduada). Neste âmbito, sugere-se o desenvolvimento de projetos CTS pelos (futuros) profissionais, com recurso às TIC, e tendo em conta a perspetiva de EPP. Considera-se que estudos desta natureza poderão ser um contributo para impulsionar a Educação em Ciências com orientação CTS recorrendo às potencialidades educativas das tecnologias, em particular no EB. Assim, preconiza-se a necessidade de se investir na transferência, expansão e avaliação do referencial a outros contextos de formação de professores de Ciências.