University students' engagement: Development of the university student engagement inventory (USEI)

Student engagement is a key factor in academic achievement and degree completion, though there is much debate about the operationalization and dimensionality of this construct. The goal of this paper is to describe the development of an psycho-educational oriented measure – the University Student Engagement Inventory (USEI). This measure draws on the conceptualization of engagement as a multidimensional construct, including cognitive, behavioural and emotional engagement. Participants were 609 Portuguese University students (67 % female) majoring in Social Sciences, Biological Sciences or Engineering and Exact Sciences. The content, construct and predictive validity, and reliability of the USEI were tested. The validated USEI was composed of 15 items, and supported the tri-factorial structure of student engagement. We documented evidence of adequate reliability, factorial, convergent and discriminant validities. USEI’s concurrent validity, with the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale-Student Survey, and the predictive validity for self-reported academic achievement and intention to dropout from school were also observed.

Jiao Tong: A Grounded Theory of Chinese International Students' Transition to American Tertiary Education

University students are more globally mobile than ever before, increasingly receiving education outside of their home countries. One significant student exchange pattern is between China and the United States; Chinese students are the largest population of international students in the U.S. (Institute of International Education, 2014). Differences between Chinese and American culture in turn influence higher education praxis in both countries, and students are enculturated into the expectations and practices of their home countries. This implies significant changes for students who must navigate cultural differences, academic expectations, and social norms during the process of transition to a system of higher education outside their home country. Despite the trends in students’ global mobility and implications for international students’ transitions, scholarship about international students does not examine students’ experiences with the transition process to a new country and system of higher education. Related models were developed with American organizations and individuals, making it unlikely that they would be culturally transferable to Chinese international students’ transitions. This study used qualitative methods to deepen the understanding of Chinese international students’ transition processes. Grounded theory methods were used to invite the narratives of 18 Chinese international students at a large public American university, analyze the data, and build a theory that reflects Chinese international students’ experiences transitioning to American university life. Findings of the study show that Chinese international students experience a complex process of transition to study in the United States. Students’ pre-departure experiences, including previous exposure to American culture, family expectations, and language preparation, informed their transition. Upon arrival, students navigate resource seeking to fulfill their practical, emotional, social, intellectual, and ideological needs. As students experienced various positive and discouraging events, they developed responses to the pivotal moments. These behaviors formed patterns in which students sought familiarity or challenge subsequent to certain events. The findings and resulting theory provide a framework through which to better understand the experiences of Chinese international students in the context of American higher education.

Evaluation of Educational Environment for Medical Students of a Tertiary Pediatric Hospital in Tehran, Using DREEM Questionnaire

Background: Tertiary pediatric hospitals usually provide excellent clinical services, but such centers have a lot to do for educational perfection. Objectives: This study was performed to address under-graduate educational deficits and find feasible solutions. Patients and Methods: This cross-sectional study was done in a target population of 77 sixth year undergraduate medical students (response rate = 78%) who spent their 3-month pediatric rotation in the Children’s Medical Center, the Pediatrics Center of Excellence in Tehran, Iran. The Dundee ready educational environment measure (DREEM) instrument was used for assessing educational environment of this subspecialized pediatric hospital. Results: Among 60 students who answered the questionnaires, 24 were male (40%). Participants’ age ranged from 23 to 24 years. The mean total score was 95.8 (48%). Comparison of scores based on students’ knowledge showed no significant difference. Problematic areas were learning, academic self-perception, and social self-perception. Conclusions: Having an accurate schedule to train general practitioner, using new teaching methods, and providing a non-stressful atmosphere were suggested solutions.

Factors Contributing to the Academic Performance of BEI Learners

Se analizan los factores que intervienen en el rendimiento académico de los estudiantes del Bachillerato en la Enseñanza del Inglés (BEI) de la Universidad Nacional (Costa Rica). El contexto universitario, el papel de los profesores, la motivación en los estudiantes y los hábitos de estudio son condiciones para fomentar el éxito académico. Según los resultados, los aprendientes necesitan ciertas características personales, motivación y metas para tener éxito en su trabajo académico. Este estudio de caso contribuye a una mejor percepción de los factores que influyen en el mejoramiento de las aptitudes de estudio y aprendizaje, así como los que intervienen en el logro de las metas académicas.This analysis refers to factors contributing to the academic performance of the students majoring in the teaching of English at the Universidad Nacional (Costa Rica). The university context, the professors' role, students' motivation and their study habits are conditions for fostering academic success. The findings indicate that learners need certain personality traits, motivation and goals to succeed in their academic work. This case study provides insight on the factors that influence the enhancement of study skills and leaming, as well as other factors that contribute to the accomplishment of academic goals.

Students' Perspective of the Role of Facebook in their Studies

The purpose of this thesis was to study the students’ perspective on their use of Facebook to further their studies. There were three research questions: (1) To what extent do students use Facebook to further their studies? (2) In what ways do students use Facebook to further their studies? (3) What do students believe are the ways that Facebook can be used by colleges and universities to help students with their studies? There were three major themes relating to usage of Facebook: non-academic usage, curricular, and co-curricular. Most of the students indicated they used Facebook to stay in touch with people they already knew. With regard to academic usage, the answers given related mostly to professors’ offers of support, collaborations with projects and assignments, and cheating on exams. There were mixed responses about whether students wanted professors to make use of Facebook in classes and how, with many indicating that they wanted to keep Facebook separate from their curricular activities. Students that were in the education fields were more than willing to use Facebook to help them in their studies than students in other majors.

A Retrospective-Longitudinal Examination of the Relationship between Apportionment of Seat Time in Community-College Algebra Courses and Student Academic Performance

During the past decade, there has been a dramatic increase by postsecondary institutions in providing academic programs and course offerings in a multitude of formats and venues (Biemiller, 2009; Kucsera & Zimmaro, 2010; Lang, 2009; Mangan, 2008). Strategies pertaining to reapportionment of course-delivery seat time have been a major facet of these institutional initiatives; most notably, within many open-door 2-year colleges. Often, these enrollment-management decisions are driven by the desire to increase market-share, optimize the usage of finite facility capacity, and contain costs, especially during these economically turbulent times. So, while enrollments have surged to the point where nearly one in three 18-to-24 year-old U.S. undergraduates are community college students (Pew Research Center, 2009), graduation rates, on average, still remain distressingly low (Complete College America, 2011). Among the learning-theory constructs related to seat-time reapportionment efforts is the cognitive phenomenon commonly referred to as the spacing effect, the degree to which learning is enhanced by a series of shorter, separated sessions as opposed to fewer, more massed episodes. This ex post facto study explored whether seat time in a postsecondary developmental-level algebra course is significantly related to: course success; course-enrollment persistence; and, longitudinally, the time to successfully complete a general-education-level mathematics course. Hierarchical logistic regression and discrete-time survival analysis were used to perform a multi-level, multivariable analysis of a student cohort (N = 3,284) enrolled at a large, multi-campus, urban community college. The subjects were retrospectively tracked over a 2-year longitudinal period. The study found that students in long seat-time classes tended to withdraw earlier and more often than did their peers in short seat-time classes (p < .05). Additionally, a model comprised of nine statistically significant covariates (all with p-values less than .01) was constructed. However, no longitudinal seat-time group differences were detected nor was there sufficient statistical evidence to conclude that seat time was predictive of developmental-level course success. A principal aim of this study was to demonstrate—to educational leaders, researchers, and institutional-research/business-intelligence professionals—the advantages and computational practicability of survival analysis, an underused but more powerful way to investigate changes in students over time.

An empirical study of the recreationalexpressive and referential roles of the cell phone among young students and their potential applications to advertising

The cell phone has become a means of finding persuasive content, making friends and accessing information. For this reason it is of great interest in analyzing is use by young people during their formative years. Regarding this point, the objectives of the research are: to obtain percentage data on the distraction call phones cause among students; to define their habits re fun activities and their study responsibility in their personal and academic lives; and to identify leisure-expressive and referential trends. It was decided to analyze the Spanish discourse found on Twitter. To do so, a quantitative and qualitative methodology was used, with a linguistic pattern extraction tool which allows us to obtain categories of meaning. The sample was 10,000 tweets in Spanish, with key words such as “cell” and “study” and all possible derivatives. The data were gathered between 30 May and the 6 June 2014, which coincides with the start of the exam period in Spain. Finally, the potential applications of the research to the specific field of publicity and advertising is discussed as a possible solution to the current needs of the brands, which have to find participative formats taking into account the students’ leisure trends.

Clinical skills and communication in nursing students

Abstract Background: Communication is a basic tool in nursing, a crucial element of care. The quality of the interactions that take place between the nurse and the user/family influence their satisfaction and security felt with the care received. Objectives: To identify the communication skills and interpersonal relationship of nursing students in health care; identify the sociodemographic and academic variables influencing communication skills and interpersonal relationship of nursing students in health care. Methodology: Quantitative study, cross-sectional, descriptive and correlational. The data collection instrument was a questionnaire with questions concerning the socio-demographic and academic characterization; basic skills of interview and clinical communication in health care; learning of clinical communication skills and range of communication skills and interpersonal relationship. The sample consisted of 374 nursing students from two Portuguese schools. Results: The majority were female (80.5%), in the age group of 18-21 years. The students recognize the importance of clinical communication skills and interpersonal relations in nursing practice (82.4%); agreed on the teaching methods of communicational skills (54.3%). Evaluated their training in the area as good (71.7%). Age, semester and school influenced communication skills and interpersonal relationship of students (p <0.5) Conclusion: The results obtained allow us to state that the education / training of nursing student in the relational context is of fundamental importance in building capacity for competent professional practice.

The Academic-enterprise experiences framework as a guide for design education

The establishment of support platforms for the development of a new culture in design education, in order to achieve both research exploitation and its results, as an approach to the industrial community, challenges higher education institutions to rethink their functioning, divided between investigation on their own initiative or on demand, and its usefulness / practical application. At the same time, through design education, how can they be the engine that aggregates all these frequently antagonistic interests? Polytechnic institutes are predisposed to collaboration and interdisciplinarity. In our course of Technology and Design of Furniture, the availability of a production unit, testing laboratories, and expertise in engineering, design and marketing, encourage the development of a holistic project. In order to develop such knowledge, we adapt three important ways of thinking in designing interactions influenced by the traditional approach, namely, 1) identifying and understanding a design problem, i.e. a market need, 2) defining the design process and knowing what can be used for design education, i.e. opportunities for design education, and 3) sustainability of this framework and design projects' alignment with education in the same field. We explain our approach by arguing from the academicenterprise experiences perspective. This concept is proposed as a way to achieve those three ways of thinking in design education. Then, a set of interaction attributes is defined to explain how engineering and product design education can enhance meaningful relations with manufacturers, stakeholders and society in general. A final discussion is presented with the implications and benefits of this approach. The results suggest that through academic-enterprise partnerships in design, several goals such as students' motivation, product design innovation and potential for knowledge transfer to industries can be achieved.

Students’ Involvement in School and Parental Support: Contributions to the Socio-Educational Intervention

Student involvement in the school and the perception of parental support are core variables in the context of studies on personal and school adjustment of children and adolescents and should be considered in the context of socio-educational intervention. In this study, we formulated the following objectives: i) to understand the differences in students’ involvement in school and the perception of parental support, according to several socio- demographic and school variables, ii) to analyse the relationship between involvement and the perception of parental support iii) to outline socio-educational intervention strategies in the contexts of children’s lives. This is a non-experimental, correlational and cross-sectional study by means of a non-probabilistic convenience sample consisting of 150 children, aged between 10 and 16 years, attending the 2nd and 3rd cycles basic education [5th – 9th years of schooling] attending a school in the central region of Portugal. The data collection instruments were “Students’ Engagement in School: a Four-Dimensional Scale – SES-4DS” (Veiga 2013, 2016), the “Perceived Parental Support Scale” (Veiga, 2011) and a part with socio-demographic and school questions was added. We found significant differences in overall (and partial) amounts of student involvement and the perception of parental support, depending on the age, gender (in agency and behaviour subscales), school difficulties/retentions and methods of study (time, a place to study and a study schedule). We also found positive and significant relationships between student involvement and perception of parental support. The results are in line with the scientific literature in the field, which highlights the key role of the variables, student involvement and perception of parental support in the academic and psychosocial adjustment of young people. These should be considered in the context of socio-educational intervention. Given the above, we present areas and action strategies promoting parent and student involvement in the educational process.

Sleep and academic performance of Portuguese teenagers

Abstract: Sleep has numerous important functions in the body, such as consolidation of memory, concentration and learning. Changes in sleep cycles in adolescents lead to sleep deprivation with consequences to academic performance. Our research question was What are the sleep habits that influence school performance (study environment, study planning, study method, reading skills, motivation to study, overall school performance) in adolescents? We aimed to identify sleep habits predictors of the quality of school performance in adolescents. Research Methods: Crosssectional analytical study. Data were collected through a self-administered questionnaire with socio-demographic questions, sleep habits and school performance scale. The sample consisted of 380 students between 7th and 9th grade, with an average age of 13.56 ± 1.23 years in the school year 2011/2012, from a 2nd and 3rd Cycle Basic School of the municipality of Viseu, Portugal. Findings: School performance in adolescents was associated with better subjective quality of sleep (p=0.000), with longer sleep duration (p=0.000), with watching tv/video before sleep (p=0.000), with the habit of studying before bedtime (p=0.012), with no computer use (p=0.013) and with reading habits before bed (p=0.000). School performance was also associated with adolescents who reported not feeling sleepy during class. The teenagers who sleep more and better, and who watch tv/video, study, do not use computers, and who read before going to bed, have a better school performance.

Emotional Skills and Promoting School Success in the 3rd Cycle: Students Perception

The perceptions about school play a central role in behavior, performance and learning outcomes. There is evidence that an improvement in emotional skills is associated with a higher school success. The aim of this paper is to know the relationship between internalizing and externalizing behaviors, emotional skills and academic success of students of the 3rd cycle of basic education. In order to promote students social and emotional skills, a pilot study in a School Grouping of the central region (Portugal) was carried out. It was made a diagnosis of disruptive behavior (ASEBA) and identified 6 children aged between 12 and 14 years old and followed by 3 focus groups with students, parents, and teachers, respectively. Six students mostly male were identified, with the predominance of externalizing behaviors and academic failure. They don’t like school and have no motivation for learning. The relationship between parents and teachers is conflictive. All parents have the utmost concern academic success and teachers perceived good practices, but without success. This program is seen in a perspective of empowerment of the educational agents to manage various environments and relationships. The results point to the importance of the systemic intervention program on the improvement of the social and emotional competences and academic achievement.

Emotional skills and promoting School Success in the 3rd cycle: students perception

Problem Statement: The perceptions about school, play a central role in behavior, performance and results. There is evidence that an improvement in emotional skills is associated with a higher success. Research Questions: What is the relationship between internalizing and externalizing behaviors, emotional skills and academic success in the 3rd cycle of basic education? Purpose of Study: To promote social and emotional skills of students, in the 3rd cycle of basic education. Research Methods: A pilot study with groups of 7th year at a school central Portugal. Made diagnosis of disruptive behavior (ASEBA) was identified 6 children aged 12 0s and 14 and followed by 3 focus groups with students, parents, and teachers respectively. Findings: 6 students mostly male were identified (70 %), with the predominance of externalizing behaviors and academic failure. Not like school (80%) and have no motivation for learning. The relationship between parents and teachers is conflituoso. 100 % of parents have the utmost concern academic success and teachers perceptional good practices, but without success. Conclusions: This program is seen in a perspective of empowerment of the various educational agents to manage various environments and relationships. The results point to the importance of the focus group in the awareness of relational problems in schools. Less adjusted change behaviors imply the involvement of all educators.

The impact of personal background and school contextual factors on academic competence and mental health functioning across the primary-secondary school transition

Students negotiate the transition to secondary school in different ways. While some thrive on the opportunity, others are challenged. A prospective longitudinal design was used to determine the contribution of personal background and school contextual factors on academic competence (AC) and mental health functioning (MHF) of 266 students, 6-months before and after the transition to secondary school. Data from 197 typically developing students and 69 students with a disability were analysed using hierarchical linear regression modelling. Both in primary and secondary school, students with a disability and from socially disadvantaged backgrounds gained poorer scores for AC and MHF than their typically developing and more affluent counterparts. Students who attended independent and mid-range sized primary schools had the highest concurrent AC. Those from independent primary schools had the lowest MHF. The primary school organisational model significantly influenced post-transition AC scores; with students from Kindergarten--Year 7 schools reporting the lowest scores, while those from the Kindergarten--Year 12 structure without middle school having the highest scores. Attending a school which used the Kindergarten--Year 12 with middle school structure was associated with a reduction in AC scores across the transition. Personal background factors accounted for the majority of the variability in post-transition AC and MHF. The contribution of school contextual factors was relatively minor. There is a potential opportunity for schools to provide support to disadvantaged students before the transition to secondary school, as they continue to be at a disadvantage after the transition.

Empowering engineering students through employability skills

A professional course program like engineering strives to get the maximum number of its students placed through campus interviews. While communication skills have been added in all the engineering courses with the aim to improve their performance in placement, the syllabus mostly concentrates on the development of four language skills. The students are not made aware of the employability skills and their significance. This essay intends to enlist the importance of skills and why students need to be aware of the skills they possess and how they can work on packaging their candidature around a few skills. The discussion starts by addressing the apparent gap between academic programs for engineering students and industry skills requirements. A list of vital employability skills from the standpoint of engineering students follows, with a discussion on how to potentially develop such skills through campus life. The essay stresses the role of academia in filling this gap by acting as facilitators in a three-step process (i.e., awareness, self-analysis, and acquisition). The author concludes that the combination of both employability skills along with an engineering degree should ensure students meet the high expectations of the employers.