Bachelor Course Research Articles

Digital and distributed project management in mechanical engineering studies – a case study

The acceleration of product development requires clear and systematic project management as a guideline and reference point for engineers from different backgrounds, different organizations and different cultures. Project management has therefore been part of the education of mechanical engineers for years. During the last years product development projects evolved the need for agile and lean management methods. So concepts originated from software development influence the organization of even pure mechanical engineering departments. Multidisciplinary product development projects can nowadays hardly do without scrum.Now, the COVID-19 pandemic suddenly transformed student cohorts from local classrooms into distributed teams from one day to the other. The basics of engineering project management could neither be explained nor trained in classroom teaching. Accidental discussions did not take place. Asking was difficult and feedback loops could not be closed. Exams in presence could not be carried out and has been transformed into some kind of homework assignment. The individual student got out of focus and learning success began to slip away. This contribution provides a case study how the sudden restrictions led to the implementation of a digital and virtual concept in teaching project management for mechanical engineering studies. It shows how classic project management is taught in a blended lecture set-up with asynchronous videos, synchronous web meetings and project based learning in a bachelor course. It further shows how agile project management is used to keep the close contact between student and teacher during student thesis. It also explains how scrum is applied to organize self-learning in a master course. The focus of this contribution is on the implementation of known methods with digital project management and communication tools. Finally, an attempt is made to compare the previous classroom teaching and the new digital teaching.

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE CONCEPTS OF INTERDISCIPLINARITY AND MULTIDISCIPLINARITY IN BACHELOR OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY COURSES

Interdisciplinarity is an advocacy of multiple disciplines, not the elimination of curricular subjects, as one might mistakenly infer. In other words, a solid disciplinary base is a prerequisite for the development of interdisciplinary projects. At the same time, disciplines are historical products of scientific development, being epistemological tools of scientific practice and political institutional arrangements for the control of knowledge. The knowledge related to interdisciplinarity builds, in the social environment, a relationship established across disciplines, and can be inserted in schools through projects and comprehensive work. Such projects can be observed in some universities. The use of interdisciplinarity in science and technology courses offers precious opportunities for students to solve problems, effectively building and consolidating knowledge in a learning process capable of inserting them in the labor market. Like interdisciplinarity, multidisciplinarity is a catalyst in the teaching-learning process, enabling students to act actively in the construction of their knowledge. Multidisciplinarity means that several disciplines study the same subject at the same time. The present article was developed to present a qualitative and quantitative panorama of the courses of Interdisciplinary Bachelor of Science and Technology, offered in brazilian federal universities.

Методика работы с латинскими и французскими паремиями на языковом факультете вуза

The purpose of the study is to summarise experience of teaching Latin and modern foreign languages to junior students of the foreign language department of a higher education institution (the bachelor course level). The article deals with importance of learning, mastering and using the Latin and French paroemias by linguistic students. Scientific novelty of the research lies in taking a modern approach to parallel study of the Latin and French paroemias on the basis of step-by-step methods developed by the authors. The research findings have shown that it is advisable to study paroemias in lexical-thematic groups as a part of the step-by-step methods proposed by the authors for bachelor degree linguistic students of the first and second years of study.

SEMANTIC DIFFERENTIATION OF THE WORLD OF THE PROFESSION BY FUTURE PHILOLOGISTS

Аn empirical study was performed to reveal the essence of the image of the world of philology in the professional consciousness of students. A psychosemantic approach was selected as the methodological basis of the study, allowing to reconstruct several implicit structures of the image of the world of the philological profession in the consciousness of philology students. Specifics of professional consciousness of junior and senior bachelor's courses were compared using the results of the application of semantic differential. We created an 18-scale semantic differential, balanced according to the parameters of evaluation, strength and activity. By comparing the characteristics of the world of philology of undergraduate students of the first and fourth year of studies, we can state the following. Students generally perceive the world of philology as important, big, active and fast, joyful, safe, emotional, good, true, colorful and new. The characteristics of safety and softness, pleasantness and colorfulness, simplicity and relaxedness, activity and speed are closely related in content within semantic structure of the world of philology. For the fourth-year students, the professional world of philology is more defined, and at the same time, they are characterized by special connections: the bad and the false, ugliness, truth and simplicity. It was concluded that age-related dynamics of development of professional consciousness of students of philological specialties are present. The world of philology is interesting, fascinating, cheerful, necessary and bright for the freshmen, while senior students see curiosity, variety, greatness, responsibility and complexity in it. The observed trends are closely related to the age of the subjects

Special issue: 30 years of ICT and learning in education – major changes and challenges

Special issue: 30 years of ICT and learning in education – major changes and challenges

When student-activating teaching conflict with students' desire for efficiency. A communication perspective on undergraduate students' media use

This article explores how students on a bachelor's course in Media Education understand the educational framework for teaching based on how they choose to participate in the teaching communication. The Norwegian Educational Quality Reform has promoted expectations of student-activating teaching methods to increase the scope of student-active learning. Digital technology was introduced in response to this challenge. Data was gathered through group interviews, a survey, and information from activity logs in the university college's learning platform. The article aims to shed light on what media practices the students consider as important and how their experiences correspond with the teachers' academic use of media. Students seem to prefer to study effectively, at the expense of activating teaching methods and of being active producers of learning. Although students are expected to be digitally competent, it should not be assumed that they master technology as expected in higher education. By drawing on Luhmann's communication theory the educational consequences of the students' media use in teaching and in independent study work is discussed.

Identifying Changes in International Business Undergraduates’ Conceptual Understanding

ABSTRACT Higher professional education aims to prepare students for professional practice, for which students will need to develop conceptual understanding. Conceptual understanding requires a synthesis of relevant facts, theories and practices. This research explores what types of change take place in students’ conceptual understanding during a bachelor course. Forty-four senior international business majors in the Netherlands wrote expository essays at the beginning and end of a 14-week course. A rubric was used to grade the essays on six components of conceptual understanding using a 5-point scale. Results indicated five types of change: regressive, minor, modest, substantial and major. The most significant increases in conceptual understanding appeared to relate to context-specific or conceptual knowledge. Results also indicated that individual students’ conceptual understanding changed in different ways, with improvements in some components and deterioration in others, particularly global context. Discussion includes suggestions to account for the different types of change, and curricular implications.

UNDERSTANDING PRE-SERVICE TEACHER CONCEPTUAL KNOWLEDGE OF HUMAN NUTRITION PROCESSES THROUGH DRAWINGS

Teachers' subject matter knowledge is a substantive component of the teaching-learning process. For a teacher to be able to transform and integrate into the classroom all the knowledge and experience they have acquired in the course of the professional activity, it is first necessary to acquire a deep and solid knowledge of the matter. The aim of the research was to analyse the understanding that pre-service teachers have about the physiology and anatomy of the human body. The alternative conceptions that pre-service teachers held about the nutritional function in living beings were also explored. The research was conducted on a biology course of the Primary Education Bachelor’s Degree during the 2018/2019 academic year. Drawings and open-ended questions were collected from 96 pre-service teachers. The results reveal that the students surveyed have limited knowledge of the subject before entering university. The use of drawing proved to be an excellent tool for detecting previous conceptions and evaluating the progression made by the students in their learning. Numerous alternative conceptions were identified among the students, thus demonstrating the need to think about the scientific methodology used to teach these contents. Keywords: alternative conceptions, human body, human nutrition, pre-service teacher’s drawings, subject matter knowledge

Sobre o Desenvolvimento da Formação em Língua Latina na China

Embora não conheçamos a data exata do início da formação em latim na China, pelas publicações das obras nesta área desde os anos 40 do século IXX, podemos concluir que esta já tem uma história longa, apesar de se focar principalmente em alunos de medicina, como uma língua de especialização. Esta situação começou a mudar em 2018, quando foi aberta a licenciatura em Latim, visando formar alunos em Estudos Clássicos Ocidentais. Neste trabalho, iremos apresentar e analisar o desenvolvimento da formação em latim na China em períodos históricos diferentes.

Formação do professor na Universidade Federal Rural da Amazônia: contribuições da disciplina de Libras

Este trabalho trata de um mapeamento da implementação da disciplina de Língua Brasileira de Sinais (Libras) na Universidade Federal Rural da Amazônia (UFRA), com o objetivo de investigar como ocorre a oferta da disciplina nos cursos de Licenciatura dessa instituição. Na perspectiva de refletir sobre a disciplina de Libras e sua contribuição para a formação do professor, são analisadas as ementas da disciplina, as cargas horárias e as referências presentes nos Projetos Pedagógicos dos Cursos de Graduação da UFRA. O levantamento dos dados foi realizado mediante buscas no site oficial da instituição. Os resultados apontam que os cursos de Licenciatura ofertam a disciplina de Libras como obrigatória e com carga horária ampliada em relação aos cursos de bacharelado, que ofertam a disciplina de forma eletiva e com carga horária menor. Apontam, ainda, que não há variação significativa de conteúdos das ementas entre os cursos de licenciatura e bacharelado, desconsiderando-se as especificidades de cada um deles.

O PERFIL DO PÓS-GRADUANDO COMO ELEMENTO PARA SE PENSAR A FORMAÇÃO DO DOCENTE EM ENGENHARIA

Por meio da aplicação on-line de um questionário sociodemográfico, realizou-se um estudo exploratório de natureza quantitativa cujos objetivos foram identificar e descrever o perfil de pós-graduandos em Engenharia visando a se conhecerem características pessoais e acadêmicas e relacioná-las com os processos de formação docente para o ensino superior realizados durante o curso. Participaram 340 pós-graduandos de instituições públicas do Sul e do Sudeste do país. Encontrou-se que mais da metade dos participantes tinha menos de 30 anos, sendo a maioria do sexo masculino e que, do total: a) 297 se graduaram em cursos de bacharelado; b) 45,6% não tinham qualquer tipo de experiência com a docência; e c) 85,9% pretendiam ser professores do ensino superior. Entende-se que os resultados encontrados subsidiam discussões sobre a preparação para a docência oferecida aos pós-graduandos, visto que o conhecimento sobre o perfil do discente pode ser utilizado para aproximar a realidade dos cursos às necessidades de seus alunos, com vistas à formação de docentes mais bem preparados.

What Are We Doing when We Are Doing Philosophy of Education?

In this paper I describe a research project designed to address the general question “What are we doing when we are doing philosophy of education?” I also describe how the research results are intended to inform three initiatives: (a) designing philosophy of education courses for Bachelor of Education programs; (b) designing graduate programs in philosophy of education; and (c) maintaining courses and programs in philosophy of education by communicating our relevance to people, academics and otherwise, outside our professional circles. The overall objective of the proposed research is to develop and illustrate a defensible account of the nature and role of philosophy in general and philosophy of education in particular, focusing on the potential role of philosophy of education in promoting consensus on norms and priorities for public education by collaborating in the emergence of a new world view through moral inquiry and discourse.

Using Flipped Classroom and Team-Based Learning Techniques to Stimulate Higher Levels of Understanding in Developmental Psychopathology

In previous years students in the advanced bachelor course Developmental Psychopathology often failed examination questions where they had to apply theoretical knowledge to realistic clinical issues. Therefore, a new teaching method was implemented to improve students’ understanding. Flipped classroom (FC) and team-based learning (TBL) techniques were implemented, using six challenging authentic assignments. This study describes how these adaptations went along with student performance for three subsequent cohorts, where each cohort received more FC and TBL elements. In cohort 2 a semi-experimental design was used to study the effects of specific techniques. Moreover, it was investigated if students considered this approach useful, and whether it changed their learning strategy. Findings suggest that both FC and TBL techniques contributed to a higher level of understanding, particularly if group work took place in supervised tutorials with teacher feedback and discussion. Further research is required to investigate which specific elements were most effective.

Professional training intended for the future bachelors of Natural Sciences: regarding the issue of structure and component composition of the subject competence in Biology

The success of modern transformational changes in public life depends crucially on the quality of professional training of future professionals. In this view, under conditions of reforming the Ukrainian society, a social significance of a competent specialist is extremely growing. An important area of transformational changes is the training of future teachers on a competence basis, which is conditioned by qualitative features of the competence-based paradigm in the context of modern socio-economic and spiritual development of society, changes in the nature and content of work, complexity as well as increasing requirements to performance results, on the one hand; and on the other hand – by the need to more quickly overcome the negative phenomena occurring in the system of training future professionals. The modern labour market, above all, provides for the presence of a professionally competent worker who is fluent in the profession-centred assignments and well-oriented in related fields, ready for continuous personal growth, social and professional mobility. These requirements can be fully applied to the training intended for the future teachers. At the same time, since the future specialist of any profession begins with the school, namely "the school stands for their teacher", the solution of these complicated problems depends entirely on the teacher, the quality of his / her training. As the teacher’s professional activity under conditions of the New Ukrainian school is filled with qualitatively new content, conditioned by the new demands of the society, the professional requirements to the training of the future teacher are significantly strengthened. This outlines a radical change in approaches to the process of professional training intended for future teachers. This is the general pedagogical core of this training that is important, because it deals with the equipping of students with knowledge of the basics of pedagogical theory and school practice, the development of professional thinking, the developed pedagogical skills and abilities to implement social functions alongside the subject component of the professional development aimed at mastering the logic of deploying the specifics of the content. Based on the understanding that each subject, including Biology in particular, is a means of developing the student's personality; the problem of forming future Natural Science teachers’ subject competence in Biology is becoming extremely important. This also requires the expansion of scientific knowledge about the structure of originality, in particular the subject competence in Biology under conditions of the bachelor courses, where basic higher education is obtained.

Sentidos e significados dos processos formativos do enfermeiro-professor

Ao pensar sobre a docência e o ser professor, reporta-se às possíveis especificidades de saberes para o exercício docente na Enfermagem, incluindo, assim, como o enfermeiro-professor vem sendo formado. Objetiva-se analisar nos trabalhos produzidos os sentidos e significados da formação docente na Enfermagem, partindo da perspectiva do currículo. Trata-se de Estado da Arte, que consiste na identificação do que já foi pesquisado e os caminhos que foram percorridos sobre o tema em estudo. Definiu-se como lócus de pesquisa: Biblioteca Digital Brasileira de Teses e Dissertações–BDTD, a partir dos seguintes descritores: Formação do enfermeiro professor; Currículo da formação do enfermeiro professor; Currículo do curso de enfermagem: bacharelado e licenciatura em Enfermagem; Licenciatura em enfermagem; Currículo, pós-estruturalismo e enfermagem e Formação do enfermeiro docente. Delinearam-se estes critérios de busca: dissertações e teses, produzidas nos últimos 10 anos, disponíveis na íntegra, tratando da realidade brasileira. Foram selecionados 15 trabalhos, sendo 11 dissertações e 4 teses. Os resultados apontaram que a maioria dos enfermeiros-professores não possui formação pedagógica, pois prevalecem os cursos de Bacharelado e a concepção de que os saberes da atuação na enfermagem são suficientes para ensinar. Existem no Brasil, nove cursos de Licenciatura em Enfermagem, alguns dos trabalhos reportam-se para estudá-los do ponto de vista histórico, dos seus limites e das suas características. A discussão sobre o currículo é apontada como caminho para repensar a formação pedagógica do enfermeiro. Há, portanto, a necessidade de que pesquisas sejam realizadas enfocando a perspectiva do currículo dos cursos de enfermagem sobre a docência.

Cylinders to pipelines: Abu Dhabi’s city gas project

Learning outcomes This case study focuses on the problems that a company have in segmenting a local market of a gas distribution company and some strategies that they can use for developing a viable market segmentation to target the right segment that will provide a good economics, revenue base customers who also have the mindset to change to a new product. At the end of this exercise, students should have a clear understanding of the following: the essentials concepts of market segmentation, targeting and positioning and how they can be leveraged so that businesses increase their returns; the main elements/steps that drive market segmentation and business positioning; the appropriate methods for market segmentation when targeting local markets for a city gas project; and the challenges companies might face when changing a product. Case overview/synopsis In 2018, commercial customers began asking Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) Distribution to provide a sustainable solution to ensure a continuous supply of safe gas and avoid the interruptions and hazards associated with the supply of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) to their premises. The request was discussed with the ADNOC marketing, supply and trading (MST) Division to investigate the possibility of growing the natural gas business in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, thus contributing to the Emirate’s security, economy, environment and community, and ultimately to ADNOC Strategy 2030. Khaled Salmeen, Director of the ADNOC MST Division, believed that industrial customers accounted for higher business volume and profitability. Nevertheless, he advised Shuhab Al Shehhi, the City Gas Project Manager, to study the potential benefits in targeting both residential and commercial customers as part of ADNOC’s responsibility towards community engagement and investments. Al Shehhi had to address several questions: How could the City Gas Project be strategized and positioned so as to target all market segments? What were the potential outcomes? Would targeting all market segments strengthen ADNOC’s brand position? Complexity academic level This case study was written for Marketing and Strategic Management courses in Bachelor of Business Administration programs. Supplementary materials Teaching Notes are available for educators only. Subject code CSS: 8 Marketing

What more than a hundred project groups reveal about teaching visualization

The growing number of students can be a challenge for teaching visualization lectures, supervision, evaluation, and grading. Moreover, designing visualization courses by matching the different experiences and skills of the students is a major goal in order to find a common solvable task for all of them. Particularly, the given task is important to follow a common project goal, to collaborate in small project groups, but also to further experience, learn, or extend programming skills. In this article, we survey our experiences from teaching 116 student project groups of 6 bachelor courses on information visualization with varying topics. Moreover, two teaching strategies were tried: 2 courses were held without lectures and assignments but with weekly scrum sessions (further denoted by TS1) and 4 courses were guided by weekly lectures and assignments (further denoted by TS2). A total number of 687 students took part in all of these 6 courses. Managing the ever growing number of students in computer and data science is a big challenge in these days, i.e., the students typically apply a design-based active learning scenario while being supported by weekly lectures, assignments, or scrum sessions. As a major outcome, we identified a regular supervision either by lectures and assignments or by regular scrum sessions as important due to the fact that the students were relatively unexperienced bachelor students with a wide range of programming skills, but nearly no visualization background. In this article, we explain different subsequent stages to successfully handle the upcoming problems and describe how much supervision was involved in the development of the visualization project. The project task description is given in a way that it has a minimal number of requirements but can be extended in many directions while most of the decisions are up to the students like programming languages, visualization approaches, or interaction techniques. Finally, we discuss the benefits and drawbacks of both teaching strategies.Graphic abstract

The Individual Transport Mobility Gap (ITMG) as an Obstacle on the Road to Higher Rates of Public Transport Use

Abstract Research purpose. The call for higher rates of public transport usage seems reasonable and understandable, given the growing impact of climate change and the high burden of heavy traffic, especially on urban transport structures. A course of Bachelor’s degree students in Logistics explored the issue of satisfaction with individual transport mobility, formulating the hypothesis that there must be a striking difference in the quality behind the use of a private car versus the use of public transport. The hypothesised difference in perceived quality between the two modes of transport was called the individual transport mobility gap (ITMG). Design/Methodology/Approach. The ITMG was considered from the perspective of people who mainly use a car (car users) and who mainly use public transport (public transport users). Both groups were asked how they rate their preferred means of transport and how they rate the alternative mode of transport using an online questionnaire. The survey can be accessed online at: https://fhludwigshafen.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_6JOoxNvlSVxsdDv. Findings. The results of the study confirmed the hypothesis that there is a substantial perceived gap with an ITMG value of 4.0 between using a car versus using public transport for people who primarily use a car. In contrast, the ITMG value for public transport users was only 0.8. Originality/Relevance/Practical Implications. The originality of this approach lies in surveying satisfaction with a mode of transport at a highly aggregated level rather than at the level of individual quality factors, such as punctuality or flexibility. ITMG is defined in this study as a valuable metric that provides a basis for comparison. This quantitative metric can in turn be used to determine the effectiveness of measures to increase usage rates of public transport. The study also provides practical findings by making available its database to other researchers for further evaluation purposes. The study also contributes to scholarly and public discourse on how to effectively reduce the satisfaction gap in the use of private cars versus public transport, thus resulting in improved outcomes for the environment and society.

Careers case studies

Careers case studies

Bachelor degree participation in vocational institutions: examining the determinants of participation

ABSTRACT Recent studies in Australia have found that bachelor's degree participation in vocational institutions in Australia tends to skew towards students from high and middle socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds. This outcome runs counter to overall vocational participation which is dominated by students from low and middle SES backgrounds. This paper uses data from the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth (LSAY) to confirm findings from a mixed-methods study on bachelor courses in vocational institutions by school leaver-aged students. It characterises the student population in such courses and examines evidence on the influence of determinants of bachelor participation in vocational institutions, in relation to measures of family background, wealth and cultural status and school type. It is found that students entering bachelor programs in vocational education have higher household levels of cultural possession, are more likely to plan to enter university, and have higher self-assessments of academic ability than those undertaking traditional vocational qualification pathways, but lower than those who undertook bachelor qualifications at university.