Attachment patterns and suicidal behaviours on higher education students

Introduction: Every individual has a necessity to establish affective relationships throughout life in order to feel comfort and support. This need is called attachment and allows the human being to explore the world, acquiring knowledge about himself and everyone else(1) There are several changes that occur on students’ lives when enrolling and attending university, a period that is known to include a set of situational and academic transitions which might lead to mental health problems, and thus making students more vulnerable and more prone to develop suicidal behaviours. Objectives: To determine the prevalence of suicidal ideation on higher education students and to assess its relationship with attachment patterns. Methods: Quantitative, descriptive and correlational study, applied on a sample of 1074 students from a Portuguese higher education institution. Data collection was possible through an online platform that included a survey with questions regarding sociodemographical and academic profiling, the Portuguese version of the Adult Attachment Scale (EVA)(2) and the Suicidal Ideation Questionnaire(3) Results: Students’ age varies between the 17 and 49 ( = 23,9 years old ± 6,107 Sd), the vast majority (64.7%) are females. Results show that the presence/severity of suicidal thoughts is low ( = 13.84; ± 20.29 Sd) on a scale from 0 to 180 and cut-off point > 41 for values that suggest potential suicidal risk, and based on that, 84 students were identified (7,8%). We verified significant relationships between suicidal ideation and anxiety and attachment (r=0.314 p=0.000). Conclusions: Although there is not a high prevalence of suicidal ideation on students, we found 84 students in our sample (7,8%) that reveal a potential risk for suicide. The results also show that young students with safe attachment patterns display less suicidal ideation. Safe attachment patterns are essential on interpersonal and social relationships and play an important role during the academic period. We cannot be indifferent towards this issue due to its individual, familiar and social repercussions. Every higher education institution should then establish student support offices and develop mental health promotion programs as well as suicide prevention campaigns.

Intellectual Capital and Performance in Higher Education Organizations

This paper intends to explore the relative importance of different Intellectual Capital (IC) dimensions regarding their contribution to the perceived performance of an Higher Education Organization (HEO). It also seeks to discuss the role of IC and performance measurement in these organizations. This is done through a case study conducted in a Portuguese HEO. The particularities of this type of organization turns it into a very interesting empirical ground for IC research. Evidence suggests that although human, structural and relational capital should contribute as a “whole” to the performance of an HEO, human resources have an added importance as source of knowledge. Results also suggest an ‘overlap’ between IC and performance indicators. Despite the validity of the interpretations provided in the context of the case study, generalization to other situations should only be conducted in a theoretically framed manner. This paper contributes to the development of IC research in a specific type of organization: an HEO. This empirical context is still underexplored, namely regarding the relationship between IC and performance. This study provides important managerial implications for HEOs and their members, who are concerned with its performance and competitiveness.

In Search of Social Justice: Current Developments in Higher Education and the Labour Market in Bulgaria

The discussions about social justice date from ancient times, but despite the enduring interest in the topic and the progress made, we are still witnessing injustices throughout the world. Thus, the search for social justice, under some form, is an inseparable part of our lives. In general, social justice may be considered as a critical idea that challenges us to reform our institutions and practices in the name of greater fairness (Miller 1999, p. x). In political and policy debates, social justice is often related to fair access (Brown, 2013) but at the same time its meanings seem to vary when we consider different definitions, perspectives and social theories (Zajda, Majhanovich, & Rust, 2006). When seen in the context of higher education, social justice appears in relevant literature as a buzzword (Patton, Shahjahan, Riyad, & Osei-Kofi, 2010). Within the recent studies of higher education and public debates related to the development of higher education, more emphasis is placed on the link between higher education and the economic growth and how higher education could be more responsive to the labour market demands, and little emphasis has been put on social justice. Given this, the present study attempts to at least partially fill the gap with regard to this apparently very topical issue, especially in the context of the unprecedented worldwide expansion of higher education in the last century (Schofer & Meyer, 2005), an expansion that is expected to continue in the next decades. More specifically, the expansion of higher education intensified in the second part of the 20th century, especially after World War II. It was seen as a result of the intertwined dynamics related to demographic, economic and political pressures (Goastellec, 2008a). This trend undoubtedly contributed to the increase of the size of the student body. To illustrate this trend, we may point out that in the period between 2000 and 2007, the number of tertiary students in the world increased from 98,303,539 to 150,656,459 (UNESCO, 2009, p. 205). This growth occurred in all regions of the world, including Central and Eastern Europe, North America and Western Europe, and contributed to raising the number of tertiary graduates. Thus, in the period between 2000 and 2008, the total number of tertiary graduates in the European Union (EU) 27 increased by a total of 35 percent (or 4.5 percent per year). However, this growth was very uneven, ranging from 21.1 percent in Romania to 0.7 percent in Hungary (European Commission working staff document, 2011). The increase of the number of students and graduates was seen as enhancing the social justice in higher education, since it is assumed that expansion “extends a valued good to a broader spectrum of the population” (Arum, Gamoran, & Shavit, 2007, p. 29). However, concerns for a deep contradiction for 21st-century higher education also emerged with regard to its expansion.

Student’s sleep in higher education: sleep quality among students of the IPB

Sleep represents a basic human need, embodying several crucial functions in the young adult phase. Objective: To evaluate the sleep quality of higher education students. A descriptive-transversal study with a quantitative approach. Nonprobabilistic convenience sample of 358 students from Instituto Politécnico de Bragança (IPB). Data collection tools used: Socio-demographic record and the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI).

Effective Approaches to Enhancing the Social Dimension of Higher Education

Despite all intentions in the course of the Bologna Process and decades of investment into improving the social dimension, results in many national and international studies show that inequity remains stubbornly persistent, and that inequity based on socio-economic status, parental education, gender, country-of-origin, rural background and more continues to prevail in our Higher Education systems and at the labour market. While improvement has been shown, extrapolation of the gains of the last 40 years in the field show that it could take over 100 years for disadvantaged groups to catch up with their more advantaged peers, should the current rate of improvement be maintained. Many of the traditional approaches to improving equity have also necessitated large-scale public investments, in the form of direct support to underrepresented groups. In an age of austerity, many countries in Europe are finding it necessary to revisit and scale down these policies, so as to accommodate other priorities, such as balanced budgets or dealing with an aging population. An analysis of the current situation indicates that the time is ripe for disruptive innovations to mobilise the cause forward by leaps and bounds, instead of through incrementalist approaches. Despite the list of programmes in this analysis there is very little evidence as to the causal link between programmes, methodologies for their use and increases/improvements in equity in institutions. This creates a significant information gap for institutions and public authorities seeking for indicators to allocate limited resources to equity improving initiatives, without adequate evidence of effectiveness. The IDEAS project and this publication aims at addressing and improving this information gap. (DIPF/Orig.)

Self-regulated learning in higher education : strategies adopted by computer programming students

Trabalho apresentado em PAEE/ALE’2016, 8th International Symposium on Project Approaches in Engineering Education (PAEE) and 14th Active Learning in Engineering Education Workshop (ALE)

A Soft Computing Approach to Quality Evaluation of General Chemistry Learning in Higher Education

In contemporary societies higher education must shape individuals able to solve problems in a workable and simpler manner and, therefore, a multidisciplinary view of the problems, with insights in disciplines like psychology, mathematics or computer science becomes mandatory. Undeniably, the great challenge for teachers is to provide a comprehensive training in General Chemistry with high standards of quality, and aiming not only at the promotion of the student’s academic success, but also at the understanding of the competences/skills required to their future doings. Thus, this work will be focused on the development of an intelligent system to assess the Quality-of-General-Chemistry-Learning, based on factors related with subject, teachers and students.

Zgaga, P., Teichler, U., Schuetze, H. G., Wolter, A. (Eds.) (2015). Higher education reform: Looking back – looking forward. Frankfurt/M.: Peter Lang. [Book review]

Book review of: Zgaga, P., Teichler, U., Schuetze, H. G., Wolter, A. (Eds.) (2015). Higher education reform: Looking back - looking forward. Frankfurt/M.: Peter Lang. 430 pp. ISBN 978-3-631-66275-5

Drivers of revenues and expenses in higher-education non-profit institutions

Double Degree

Assessing the Role of General Chemistry Learning in Higher Education

The inclusion of General Chemistry (GC) in the curricula of higher education courses in science and technology aims, on the one hand, to develop students' skills necessary for further studies and, on the other hand, to respond to the need of endowing future professionals of knowledge to analyze and solve multidisciplinary problems in a sustainable way. The participation of students in the evaluation of the role played by the GC in their training is crucial, and the analysis of the results can be an essential tool to increase success in the education of students and improving practices in various professions. Undeniably, this work will be focused on the development of an intelligent system to assess the role of GC. The computational framework is built on top of a Logic Programming approach to Knowledge Representation and Reasoning, complemented with a problem solving methodology moored on Artificial Neural Networks. The results so far obtained show that the proposed model stands for a good start, being its overall accuracy higher than 95%.

Sleep quality and stress levels among higher education students

A good night sleep enables to achieve physical and mental wellbeing (Paiva, 2015). The preservation of sleep quality is paramount as who sleeps well has a high adaptation capacity to adverse circumstances such as stress and anxiety, amongst others. There is an impacting relationship between reduced sleeping hours and high levels of anxiety, depression and stress (Pinto et al., 2012). Measure the sleep quality and stress levels amongst higher education students.Quantitative study with a descriptive-correlational and transversal design. A socio-demographic record, the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) from Ramalho (2008) and the Anxiety, Depression and Stress Scale (EADS-21) from Ribeiro, Honrado and Leal (2004) were applied. The sample included 358 students. 54% of the students present a bad sleep quality, go to bed on average at 1am, take about 19 minutes to fall asleep and sleep on average 7 hours effectively. Female students have a 48% higher probability of having bad sleep quality. Stress, anxiety and depression levels were considered disperse with stress presenting the higher average. The majority of the students that refer having a bad sleep quality present an average score of 6.57 on the stress scale being approximately double of the students that refer having a good sleep quality (3.35). Stress, anxiety and depression are positively and with statistic signiicance correlated to the sleep quality index where a higher score means worse sleep quality.

1984-1985 ANNUAL REPORT South Carolina Higher Education Tuition Grants Committee AUGUST 1, 1985

The South Carolina Higher Education Tuition Grants Commission submits an annual accountability report to the Governor and General Assembly that contains the Commission's mission, objectives to accomplish the mission, and performance measures that show the degree to which objectives are being met.

HIGHER EDUCATION TUITION GRANTS COMMITTEE ANNUAL REPORT 1985-1986

The South Carolina Higher Education Tuition Grants Commission submits an annual accountability report to the Governor and General Assembly that contains the Commission's mission, objectives to accomplish the mission, and performance measures that show the degree to which objectives are being met.

HiGHER EDUCATION TUITION GRANTS COMMITTEE ANNUAL REPORT 1986-1987

The South Carolina Higher Education Tuition Grants Commission submits an annual accountability report to the Governor and General Assembly that contains the Commission's mission, objectives to accomplish the mission, and performance measures that show the degree to which objectives are being met.