Danish University Students Research Articles

LANGUAGE LEARNING MOTIVATION: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF DANISH AND JAPANESE UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

This study investigates the possible differences between Danish and Japanese university students in reported motivation to study English and in the sources of motivation, and how these factors may lead to different language learning outcomes. Specific emphasis was placed on the value of English for future employment. A Likert-scale survey, with two additional open-ended questions, was administered to both populations in a classroom setting in their respective home countries. Mann Whitney U tests revealed statistically significant differences between the two samples in general motivation and in several sources of motivation. Additionally, participantsʼ answers to open-ended questions revealed very different experiences both in past language classes and in daily life, which may have been motivating for the Danish population and demotivating for the Japanese population.

(Self)Confidence or compliance: Students' experience of academic quality in study-abroad contexts

This article investigates the views of quality in higher education held by two groups of international students: Chinese students at a Danish university and Danish students at Chinese universities. Given that there are no agreed international 'quality standards' in higher education, we analysed the students' understanding of the 'quality values' of their host institution and their own preferences and priorities. Representatives of the two groups participated in an interview study addressing the experience of academic quality at their study-abroad university. An intriguing trend was identified in the data. Danish students felt confident that they themselves were able to judge the academic quality of programmes, classes and lecturers both at home and abroad. The participating Chinese students tended to express themselves in slightly depreciatory terms regarding the academic quality values of their home universities. Regarding research methods and theoretical knowledge, they adopted the quality values of the Danish host university and referred to these values when evaluating their home universities.

Measuring Happiness and Overall Life Satisfaction: A Danish Survey Experiment on the Impact of Language and Translation Problems

The paper addresses language and translation problems in the most typical measures of happiness and overall life satisfaction in international surveys using an experimental design. In the experiment, randomly selected groups of Danish university students answered questionnaires in English and Danish, respectively. We found significant differences in the answers on both indices. As such, it was confirmed that the term “happy” is not the same in English and Danish. In Danish the word is similar to the German word “glucklich” which seems to refer to something stronger than just being “happy”. Perhaps more surprisingly, we also found a significant difference between the answers on “overall life satisfaction”, indicating that the answers given in Danish are too high as compared to the English ones. The differences are large enough to argue that such simple tests should be conducted before ranking countries in terms of these two well-established indices of subjective well-being.

Social Origin and Graduation Age: A Cohort Comparison of Danish University Students

This paper investigates whether social origin has an impact on graduation age among university students. A large number of social background factors are applied on a large data set of 4 successive cohorts of Danish university graduates born 1960–1975. These are cohorts for whom university attendance increased steeply. Contrary to recent findings on educational attainment in Scandinavia, the analyses show that the economic capital of the family of origin plays a somewhat greater role than does the cultural capital of the family of origin for getting their offspring through higher education on schedule. The impact of cultural capital decreases across cohorts, but the impact of economic capital is fairly constant.

The Educational Strategies of Danish University Students from Professional and Working-Class Backgrounds

This article studies the educational strategies adopted by university students from different class backgrounds in a Scandinavian welfare regime. Studies show distinct differences among classes relating to economic considerations, risk-averse behavior, and patterns of socialization among university students. We investigate these differences through qualitative interviews with 60 students from six programs. We ask how and to what extent Danish students’ choice of program and their educational strategies, attitudes, and behaviors are class related. We find that strategies are class based, but Danish working-class students do not refer to their class cultural background or to a collective working-class identity as either an asset or a challenge. Furthermore, financial constraints are not perceived as affecting their choice of higher education.

University students’ retention of derivative concepts 14 months after the course: influence of ‘met-befores’ and ‘met-afters’

This article reports the concluding part of a larger study on retention of key procedural and conceptual concepts in differential and integral calculus among Croatian and Danish university students in non-mathematics study programmes. The first parts of the study examined the retention of the students’ knowledge through a questionnaire testing core calculus concepts in derivative and integration given two and six months after the students had passed an exam testing those concepts. In the present article we continue to explore the retention of core concepts in derivative through a mixed method approach examining the knowledge of 10 second-year non-mathematics students 14 months after they took the course. The result showed that there were several negative met-befores and met-afters affecting the students’ retention.

Exploring the heterogeneity of class in higher education: social and cultural differentiation in Danish university programmes

This paper examines the relationship between social background, choice of university programme and academic culture among Danish university students. Statistically and sociologically, university students are often treated as a homogeneous group, but the ever-increasing number of students in higher education demands a closer examination of the hidden heterogeneity in the students’ social origin and educational strategies. Using a mixed-method approach (register data and ethnographic observations and interviews) the paper focuses on the students’ class origins and on different cultural practices in three Danish university programmes. It is shown that the Danish university field is characterized by a significant variation in social selectivity from programme to programme, and it is argued that these different social profiles correspond with distinctively different cultural practices in the programmes. Correspondingly, the students have distinctively different strategies towards education and future work life.

Subfoveal Choroidal Thickness in Relation to Sex and Axial Length in 93 Danish University Students

To investigate the association between subfoveal choroidal thickness and ocular axial length, refractive error, and blood pressure in healthy young women and men. Cross-sectional observational study of 93 eyes in 93 healthy Danish university students (mean age 24.9 ± 2.6 years). The submacular choroid was imaged using enhanced-depth imaging spectral domain optical coherence tomography. Subfoveal choroidal thickness was measured by visual inspection and manual fitting of the choroidal borderlines. Study parameters included history, best corrected visual acuity, objective refraction, interferometric ocular axial length, fundus photography, and blood pressure manometry. The mean subfoveal choroidal thickness was 342 (±118) μm, the mean age was 24.9 (±2.6) years and the mean refractive error of participants was -1.43 (±2.9) diopters (D). In a multiple regression model, subfoveal choroidal thickness decreased by 58.2 μm (95% confidence interval [CI], 42.2-74.2 μm; P < 0.001) per mm increase in axial length adjusted for age and sex and subfoveal choroidal thickness was 62 μm (95% CI, 21-104 μm; P = 0.0039) thicker in men than in women, adjusted for age and axial length. Arterial blood pressure had no statistical effect on subfoveal choroidal thickness. In this study of healthy young participants choroidal thickness was 18% higher in men than in women when adjusting for age and axial length. This observation may help explain the effect of sex in conditions related to choroidal thickness such as myopia, central serous chorioretinopathy, and age-related macular degeneration.

How Do I Look? Body Image Perceptions among University Students from England and Denmark

This study examined differences in body image perception between university students in two European countries, United Kingdom and Denmark. A total of 816 British and 548 Danish university students participated in a cross-sectional survey. A self-administered questionnaire assessed socio-demographic information, body image perception (as “too thin”, “just right” or “too fat”), and the association of related factors with body image perception (nutrition behaviour, social support, perceived stressors and quality of life). The proportions of students who perceived themselves as “too thin”, “just right”, or “too fat” were 8.6%, 37.7%, and 53.7% respectively. Multi-factorial logistic regression analysis showed that students who perceived themselves as “too fat” were more likely to be from the British university, to be females, to be older than 30 years, to report stress due to their financial situation and were less likely to have a high quality of life. The findings highlight the need for interventions with focus on healthy food choices whilst acknowledging financial stressors and quality of life.

Danish Post-Secondary Students Use Public Libraries for Study Purposes

Objective – To determine whether and how Danish university and higher education students use public libraries for study purposes.&#x0D; &#x0D; Design – Online survey.&#x0D; &#x0D; Setting – Post-secondary students in Denmark.&#x0D; &#x0D; Subjects – 1,575 students in university-level programs or other higher education programs (vocational three-to-four-year programs) in Denmark.&#x0D; &#x0D; Methods – A sample of students was drawn from the national database of students by selecting every student born on the 15th of every month (approximately 4,900 students). A letter describing the study and with an invitation to fill out an online questionnaire was sent to all students in the sample. There were 1,694 valid responses (approximately 35% response rate). Students following short vocational programs were deemed to be under-represented and these subjects were omitted from the analysis of this report, which reflects the response of 1,575 students.&#x0D; &#x0D; The online questionnaire gathered demographic details (gender, age, educational institution, study topic, study year, geographical location, access to the Internet, etc.) and used 110 questions or statements to gather information about student information-seeking behaviour related to study purposes. These included use of the physical library and satisfaction with services, use of search engines, awareness and use of library Web-based services, study behaviour, and participation in information literacy activities.&#x0D; &#x0D; Main results – For the purposes of this study, “academic library is used as a generic term covering university libraries, research libraries, educational libraries and all other kind of libraries outside the field of public libraries” (p. 278). &#x0D; &#x0D; The survey results confirmed many of the previous international reports of student information-seeking behaviour: 85% of students use the academic library for study purposes; fewer than 10% of all students are able to cope without any library use; students in technology and engineering, the sciences and arts, architecture and music have a higher rate of non-use of their academic libraries; a large percentage of students access the electronic resources from home; the physical library is still considered important to students; Google is used extensively and is nearly the exclusive choice for search engine.&#x0D; &#x0D; The public library is used for study purposes by about 58 percent of all students with the highest use (76%) by students in higher education institutions (HEI); students of education, social topics and psychology are very frequent public library users. Female students in HEI were the most frequent users of the public library independent of study subject or year, or any other demographic variable. Seven per cent of students rely exclusively on the public library for study purposes and first-year HEI students in the subject areas of education, social topics and psychology are over-represented in this group (which additionally has less Internet access from home than the other students).&#x0D; &#x0D; Students perceive nearly all aspects of service in the academic library as superior; HEI students rate ambience, electronic resources and speed of inter-library loan provision in the public library as higher than the academic.&#x0D; &#x0D; University students give a low rating to the collections of public library, although the students use the public library principally to supplement the collections available in their academic libraries. Another high use of public libraries by HEI students is for inter-library loans placed through the national resource sharing system. Public library reference services are used often by only one per cent of students and only two per cent use the public library on a regular basis for “study related group activities.”&#x0D; &#x0D; Conclusion – Students use physical libraries to a great extent to support their studies and students have embraced digital access to collections, especially access from home. Google is the most heavily used search engine and is used by nearly all students; use of Google complements and supplements library use. &#x0D; &#x0D; Nearly 60% of all students use public libraries for study purposes and to supplement the collections of their academic library, but they find that the public library collections are insufficient to meet their needs. The inter-library loan policies of public libraries are more lenient and accommodating to student needs and may drive the high use of public libraries. Students form a large constituency of the public library user population and they generally rate most aspects of service as substandard to those of academic libraries. There is a call for review of the public library’s role in meeting the information needs of students, and in particular, those of HEI programs who are most dependent on the public library.

Regression to the mean effect: When to be concerned and how to correct for it

The paper deals with the problem of regression to the mean when testing hypotheses of change dependent on the level of the measure of interest at the time of the first measurement in longitudinal studies. The paper includes: A discussion on the nature of regression to the mean and when to be aware of it in relation to different fields of psychological research. An example of the severe implications regression to the mean can have for interpretation of results, based on Nielsen’s research on changes in the learning styles of Danish university students. Finally, a relatively easy way to correct for regression to the mean in connection with paired sample t-tests of no change for persons with either low or high scores at the first measurement is demonstrated.