The Development and Use of an Instrument to Assess Students' Attitudes to the Study of Science

This paper reports on aspects of a three-phase study whose aim was to gather information on undergraduates' responses to the study of science. The emphasis of this paper is on methodological issues arising from considerations of how to measure and analyse data on attitudes. The study draws on the methodology employed in an earlier study undertaken in Canada, the Views on Science-Technology-Society (VOSTS) study, applying the methodology in a new context. The first two phases involved the development and validation of an appropriate research instrument. The third phase involved using the instrument with students in the first year of study at a South African University. In additional to the quantitative data gathered, the students' responses on the instrument were used to develop in-depth 'profiles' of particular groups of students. This technique proved particularly effective in identifying areas for possible remedial action.

Traditionally, the prevalence of health-risk behaviours is high among university students. Although these behaviours are often analysed in isolation, there is likely evidence for the co-occurrence of multiple risk behaviours. In this study, a latent class analysis (LCA) was conducted with cross-sectional data from 840 Portuguese students (55.4% female) to explore patterns of multiple risk behaviours across seven behavioural dimensions (alcohol consumption, smoking, unhealthy eating, sedentary behaviour, risky sexual practices, illicit drug use, and self-medication). Additionally, a latent class regression was performed to explore predictors (perceived well-being and sociodemographic and academic characteristics) for each behavioural pattern. A three-class model emerged with different probabilities of risk: Low-risk behaviours (51.4%), Moderate-risk behaviors (14.9%), and High-risk behaviours (33.7%). Students with better perceptions of well-being and health were likelier to be in the healthier class. Students in the low- and moderate-risk classes were more likely to be in their first year of study, not in a romantic relationship and to be full-time students. Students who had not changed residence at the beginning of their studies and were female were more likely to be in the healthiest class. This study provides essential strategies for health promotion among university students, offering crucial insights for the design of effective health promotion interventions, especially targeted at specific groups of students with similar patterns of multiple risk behaviours.

Iwona Chrzanowska, Inclusive education in the opinion of the teachers from special pre-schools, regarding the chances of success of the inclusive actions towards particular groups of students, education participants, and teachers’ seniority. Interdisciplinary Contexts of Special Pedagogy, no. 25, Poznań 2019. Pp. 127-149. Adam Mickiewicz University Press. ISSN 2300-391X. DOI: https://doi.org/10.14746/ikps.2019.25.06
 Within the context of the implementation of the inclusive education model, it seems important to learn the opinions of the teachers, particularly those teachers that are experienced in working with a child/student with a disability, regarding the chances of success of inclusive actions, both in the context of the type, and the level of severity of the developmental disorder, the hazard of the developmental disorder, as well as, regarding the remaining participants of inclusive education, i.e. students without or with special educational needs, however, displaying certain aptitudes. The text focuses on the teacher from the pre-school level of education, as well as, refers to the determination of their attitudes towards the realisation of the model ofinclusive education, as related to their seniority.

With the increase in the number of university students, the number of those who do not finish successfully the tertiary education is also increasing. The article uses a specific data source and analyses only a part of the group of unsuccessful students who re-enroll. This is a specific group of students - they did not finish the tertiary study in the past, but after some time they returned to education. The aim of the paper is to find significant factors that influence the decision whether the student changes the studied school or field of study. Factors will be searched using decision trees and binary logistic regression. Both methods were significant for gender and the fact that a student is studying his preferred university. Logistic regression adds to the student's health disadvantage. The data were obtained from the EUROSTUDENT survey, which was held in the Czech Republic in 2016 under the auspices of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports. The results can be used to identify a risky candidate or student at the beginning of tertiary education.

This research was conducted at SMP Negeri 3 Langowan and focused on managing the conflict among students. It could be described as follows: (1) the types of conflict between groups of students, (2) how the strategies of the headmaster in managing the conflict. This investigation used a qualitative approach. The techniques of collecting data were: (1) observation, (2) interview, (3) document study, (4) and compilation of the three techniques (triangulation). The research instruments were the researcher herself, field notes, and interview guidelines. The obtained data was analyzed by following: (1) coding, (2) data reduction, (3) data display, (4) data verification, and then the data verification, was done as follows: (a) credibility, (b) transferability, (c) dependability. Based on data analysis, the findings were as follows: 1. The types of conflict among 14 groups of students: (1) a group of clever students insulted then a group of less clever students, (2) another group of students was playing gane the other group of students interrupted the play, (3) different opinion in discussion among groups of students, (4) one student in a group attack a student in another group caused conflict between the groups, (5) conflict between groups because one student of the group moved into the other group. 2. Based on research funding, most teachers at SMP Negeri 3 were interviewed, and according to them, the funding results were true. The strategies used by the headmaster to handle the conflict among groups of students are (a) trust to solve the problem to the teacher who became picket, (b) if it was not solved then trust it to OSIS, (c) and then to the special teacher, counselor, (d) and then the lost, would be solved by the headmaster by using problem-solving approached.

The lived experience of first year undergraduate student nurses: A hermeneutic phenomenological study

Developing professional culture of the specialist in international students is a complicated process, as international students should adjust to new university culture. This paper is a study of a group of Turkmenian students in a Russian University as they become adjusted to the culture of teaching and learning in the new learning environment during their first year of study. It focuses on Turkmenian students’ adjustments, emotional, cognitive and behavioural, in order to make their learning successful and to become a good specialist in the future. The present study seeks to analyse the level of the international students’ flexibility and adaptability in a new education space at the end of the first year of study. Flexibility and adaptability is understood in this study as a component of intercultural competence. The descriptors of the levels of flexibility and adjustment are taken from Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture. The authors focus on the research questions: What adaptation difficulties do Turkmenian students have during their first year of study in a Russian university? What is the level of flexibility and adaptability of the Turkmenian students at the end of the first year of study from their own perspectives? The results of the questionnaire revealed that Turkmenian students possessed quite a good basic level of flexibility and adaptability, which enabled them to continue future adjustment and successful learning.

Landscapes of investigation provide different learning environments from the paradigm of exercises. The move from exercises into landscapes of investigation is a move into new risk structures, but is also a move into new possibilities. When entering into landscapes of investigation, one cannot expect the communication to follow predictable patterns. Here, one enters an environment which calls for dialogue. I see dialogue as playing a fundamental role in establishing a critical activity, and as a consequence I consider working with landscapes of investigation to be an important feature of critical mathematics education. The exploration of landscapes is not restricted to particular groups of students. Any group of students can be invited into such landscapes: students at social risk, students in comfortable positions, students with disabilities, senior students, and university students in mathematics. Landscapes of investigation are constructions; they are contested, and they can come to include any kind of controversial issue.

In the last years, the number of Open Educational Resources (OER) on the Web has intensely increased thanks to initiatives from universities all around the world such as the Open Course Ware, and the production of Massive Open Online Courses. The potential of OERs to spread knowledge around the world is crucial. Nonetheless, spotting a list of resources targeting specific skills, and covering particular needs in a group of students is becoming a challenging task. The contribution of this work-in-progress is twofold: 1) this paper presents the results of harvesting 678 OERs and cataloguing them into specific entrepreneurship skills but also targeting three particular groups of students: young, female and trainers. This research aims at providing these students an adapted platform of OERs towards sharpening entrepreneurship skills; 2) based upon these findings, key repositories of OERs towards developing entrepreneur skills are highlighted. Data obtained through this work will allow to find precise OERs in the entrepreneurship field using a semantic taxonomy.

Knowing relevant information about students entering the higher education (HE) system is becoming increasingly important, thus enabling higher education institutions (HEIs) to design effective studentcentred support programmes. Therefore, HEIs should ascertain all relevant information about their students before the commencement of the academic year. Doing so means that institutions have a head start in understanding the types of support that will be required for different students throughout the year. This article describes the design, implementation and application of a student biographical questionnaire (BQ) online platform at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), as well as some of the lessons learned in this regard. The BQ online platform was fully implemented for the first time in January 2016 during the student registration process and has now become an integral part of the university student registration process. Once data collection and analysis is done, a BQ report is compiled and presented to various high-level decision-making structures of the university. The Faculty Student Advisers are the most critical users of the BQ data, as they utilise the data to inform and improve the various student support interventions that each faculty is providing. The planning process for BQ data collection includes questionnaire review; updates on the BQ online platform; testing of the BQ online platform; stakeholder meetings and BQ training of involved stakeholders. Some of the lessons learned when implementing this online platform include buy‑in and support from University Management; understanding of the BQ online platform by those dealing directly with students during the registration process; and continuous review and improvements of the BQ online platform. The BQ online platform has proven to be a valuable tool in providing Wits with a head start in understanding the needs of the students and the support they might require to succeed in their first year of study.

This article presents an interpretive case study of two groups of students and a facilitator, who were involved in the learning and teaching of a postgraduate research module. The module was face-to-face for a group of twenty four students and fourteen distance learning students. The facilitator had to use different e-resources to create an e-learning environment for the students to learn. Document/LMS analysis, semi-structured interviews/discussion and participant observations were used for data generation. Purposive sampling was used in selecting these two specific groups of research students and their facilitator. This article uses the term ‘e-learning signals’ to group every important element of e-learning environments. Twelve issues of learning are presented for discussing the important activities for learning framed by the curricular spider web. This article consequently recommends that facilitators and students should define, understand, and use or apply the e-learning environment in order to support learning.

ADHD-specific knowledge and attitudes of teachers (ASKAT): Development and validation of a new research instrument

The article is devoted to one of the topical issues of modern medicine — the health of students at a higher educational institution. The relevance of the work is due to the significant prevalence of various disorders in the adaptive reactions of the body, especially in the first year of study at a higher educational institution. This study included 2 groups of students: 1st group — 12 male students, 2nd group — 18 female students. An anonymous survey was conducted in two groups, and in each of the groups, students had certain complaints that indicated the disruption of adaptation processes in the body in the first year of study.

The research data used in this article are drawn from a study conducted in a business faculty at a Historically Black South African University during 2009 and 2010. A comparison was made in the study between two groups of first-year students: a group that had passed all their modules and a group that had failed some of their modules at the end of their first year of study. The aim was to investigate factors that had an impact on the successful completion of the first year of study by problematising the perception that those students from disadvantaged backgrounds or under-resourced schools are necessarily disadvantaged and destined to fail. In this article the focus is on the successful group of students and their mastery of academic discourse situated in the complexity of social and academic interaction. The findings indicate that the inter-relatedness of personal, academic, social and institutional factors mirror the inter-related way in which the students had experienced them. These findings further underline the fact that successful learning is a complex and multi-layered process that is ongoing and that needs to be monitored, sustained and evaluated throughout students' study careers. The students' personal perspectives on academic study provided not only evidence that the development of academic literacy is socially situated and constructed but also showed how successful students manage their academic learning to mitigate under-preparedness and adverse personal circumstances.

Evaluating Academic Literacies Course Types