Fundamental Course Research Articles

Assessing Critical-Analytical Listening Skills in Math and Engineering Students: An Exploratory Inquiry of How Analytical Listening Skills Can Positively Impact Learning

In this article, the researchers discuss the implementation of the Ferrari, Lynch, and Vogel Listening Test (FLVLT) to two STEM areas: Mathematics and Computer Science. The goal of the present study was to assess the improvement in students’ mastery of critical listening skills and how listening can help students to retain information. After students were introduced to the subject matter, two specifically tailored listening assessment tools were designed. Pretests and posttests were then administered in an introductory algebra (n = 29 students) and a network fundamentals course (n = 13 students). These tests were administered approximately four weeks apart. The data show that the FLVLT model is reliable for judging students’ critical listening skills and curricular knowledge. Furthermore, a 12% and 20% improvement in students’ ability to match the content pattern to a spoken message was found. In addition, a correlational analysis suggested that improvement in critical listening skills helped students’ learning.

Building First Semester Nursing Student Confidence for Test Taking: A STARS Pilot Project

This quasi-experimental pilot study implemented a relaxation technique in first semester registered and practical nursing students enrolled in a nursing fundamentals course. Data were collected and analyzed to determine the effectiveness of the Confidence Training for Tests intervention in reducing test anxiety levels. The study demonstrated clinical significance, showing a difference in mean test anxiety scores. Findings revealed that there was a 5.8 point difference in the mean sum of the item responses pre- and postintervention.

Effects of concept-mapping-based interactive e-books on active and reflective-style students’ learning performances in junior high school law courses

ABSTRACTResearchers have pointed out that interactive e-books have rich content and interactive features which can promote students’ learning interest. However, researchers have also indicated the need to integrate effective learning supports or tools to help students organize what they have learned so as to increase their learning performance, in particular, for abstract and complex learning content such as that in law courses. In this study, a concept-mapping-based interactive e-book learning mode was proposed. To understand the learning effects, a quasi-experimental design was used to compare the learning achievement and motivation of the students learning with the proposed approach (experimental group) and those learning with conventional interactive e-books (control group) in a junior high school fundamental law course. Meanwhile, the learning achievement and motivation of the students with different learning styles were also explored. The experimental results showed that the proposed approach significantly improved the students’ learning achievement, especially for the active-style students; moreover, it was found that the lead-in of concept mapping did not affect the students’ learning motivation. Factors that might affect the students’ learning achievement and motivation with the concept-mapping-based interactive e-book approach are discussed accordingly.

Preparation of graphite conductive paint and its application to the construction of RC circuits on paper

We describe a simple procedure for the preparation of graphite-based conductive paint and determine its basic transport properties when applied, comparing them to those of pencil strokes. Ohm’s law was fulfilled on the applied paint, which makes it an ideal strategy to teach the relations between a resistor’s length, width and resistance. The conductive paint was used in the construction of RC circuits on paper in a simple and didactic format. Using only the paint and a piece of cardboard, a completely functional parallel plate capacitor can be constructed with different plate geometries; in particular, we painted circular and rectangular plates. The charge and discharge cycles of the two RC circuits painted were observed in the oscilloscope. We obtained characteristic times and estimated the value of the dielectric constant of paper, which serves as a dielectric between the plates of the capacitors. We found conductive paint to be a useful and easy method to teach basic electricity and circuit concepts in fundamental courses and lab practices because it allows one to visualise properties such as the dependence of resistance and capacitance with geometric factors using a specific material.

Use of a simulation intervention to examine differences in nursing students' hand hygiene knowledge, beliefs, and behaviors

BackgroundAlthough hand hygiene remains an essential aspect of quality care, adherence to best patient safety practices continues to pose major challenges. ObjectivesThe objectives of this study are to examine hand hygiene knowledge, beliefs, practices, perceived importance and behaviors using Social Cognitive Theory and simulation-based intervention. DesignParticipants were taken from a convenience sample of 131 undergraduate nursing students enrolled in a nursing fundamentals course at an urban university in the midwestern United States, and then randomly assigned to their respective groups. Using an experimental pretest-posttest design, control and intervention groups received the same lecture pertaining to hand hygiene and 3 data collection points where van de Mortel's Hand Hygiene Questionnaire (HHQ) was administered. In addition, the intervention group viewed a 6.5min video related to healthcare acquired infection and participated in 4 simulated situations requiring hand hygiene, based on World Health Organization guidelines. For all students, the hand hygiene technique was assessed through the use of Glo Germ, followed by handwashing and photography under ultraviolet light (posttest only). Image illumination was analyzed using image processing software. Microbiological sampling plates (pretest-posttest) were assessed quantitatively by colony counting. ResultsStudy findings did not support differences in the intervention group for the 5 hypothesized relationships. Social desirability responding and negative item confusion were found to occur with the HHQ in the student population. There was a significant difference in the UV hand photographs, with students in the afternoon having lower values than students in the morning. ConclusionsGiven the study results, there were no definitive educational recommendations to teach hand hygiene to nursing students. Future research should continue to further examine multi-focal modalities to enhance adherence to hand hygiene practices, as well as control for extraneous mediating or moderating variables found in educational settings.

Assessing the Impact of Continuous Evaluation Strategies: Tradeoff Between Student Performance and Instructor Effort

Current opinion on undergraduate studies has led to a reformulation of teaching methodologies to base them not just on learning, but also on skills and competencies. In this approach, the teaching/learning process should accomplish both knowledge assimilation and skill development. Previous works demonstrated that a strategy that uses continuous evaluation is able to meet both objectives. However, those studies did not evaluate and quantify the additional effort required to implement such strategies. This paper evaluates the additional instructor effort required when implementing continuous evaluation in a first-year Computer Fundamentals course in the Computer Engineering degree program at the Technical University of Valencia, Spain. The experiment quantifies how instructor workload increases under different continuous evaluation strategies and how this affects the overall student grade. Both the “standard” continuous evaluation method and the intensive continuous evaluation method are analyzed, the latter being a proposal that builds upon the standard method by increasing the number of tests and examinations. The results obtained reveal that continuous evaluation improves student grades but that intensive continuous evaluation is liable to generate an excessive instructor overload without having a significant impact on student scores.

Teaching Research of Geology Field Courses: A Case Study from Wuhan University

The geology field course is the fundamental course in geoscience education. It is an intensive course that applies classroom and laboratory training to solve geological problems in the field. Wuhan University has offered a geology field course for undergraduate students since the 1950s. This paper summarizes and analyzes the teaching research in aspects of field course location, teaching contents and teaching tools since 2010, when the site was changed from the city of Chibi to Zigui County near the Three Gorges reservoir region.

Collaborative Experiential Learning Model

An entrant to engineering has to undergo many fundamental courses in the first year of curriculum. Basic electrical engineering is one amongst these courses. The traditional way of teaching the course was teacher-centric and aid used for teaching was chalk and talk. Less emphasis was given for student interaction. Traditional style of teaching rarely gives students the opportunity to apply their newfound knowledge to actual situations, resulting in a serious time lag between students learning and applying new knowledge. As a result many students have trouble determining the relevance of what they are being taught, and thus lacking any obvious need to learn and fail to engage in the learning process. To provide an opportunity for collaborative experiential learning to reinforce the theoretical concepts imbibed in students we proposed a model on collaborative experiential learning which concentrates on the beginning of instruction referring to Fink's Model containing Knowledge of subject matter, Design of Course, and Course management. In particular, the Teacher-student interaction is adopted which is an umbrella term that refers to all the different ways teachers interact with their students. For better interfacing, Kolb's experiential learning theory based on a four-stage learning cycle is applied. In addition to the above in teaching learning process learning style of an individual is important to undergo different learning cycle. The three main types of learning styles are, auditory, visual, and kinesthetic. Whenever the task is given for an individual the above learning styles can be adopted, meanwhile if the task is for a team with different learning style of a student then we need to focus on style of learning. The three styles of learning are active learning, cooperative learning and problem based learning. The proposed model is applied to the course on Fundamentals of Electrical Engineering, Apart from the regular classroom teaching we used principles of instruction to select, plan and develop an activity based on Industry visit to enhance students learning. To realize the impact of learning happened through the industry visit pertaining to topics like actuators and/or sensors, the written examination was conducted and feedback at two intervals, before and after the industry visit was taken. Individual question wise inferential statistical analysis using paired t- test was performed and inferred that the activity improved the knowledge and exposure level of a student.

反思性教学应用于物理光学课程的探索性研究

物理光学作为光学类、光电信息类、光子学类等学科门类的重要学科基础课程，具有理论性强、物理情景抽象、理解难度大等特点，容易导致学生的学习效果不佳。本文尝试在物理光学教学过程中采用反思性教学方法，对现有的教学内容、教学方式、教学环节、教学效果进行了全面反思。通过近两年的反思性教学实践，发现学生的学习兴趣得到了很大的激发。在考试内容、题量及难度与往年相当的情况下，物理光学课程的考试成绩也得到了较大的提高。尤为重要的是学生在物理光学方面的主动性和创造性学习能力得到了大幅提升，教学效果明显增强。 Physical optics, acting as an important disciplinary fundamental course of some fields of discip-lines such as optics, optoelectronic information, photonics and so on, has some characteristics of strong theoretical property, abstractive physical situation and difficult understanding, etc. which easily result in a poor learning effect of the students. The paper attempts to adopt the reflective teaching method in the course of physical optics in order to entirely reflect the existing teaching contents, teaching modes, teaching links, and teaching effects. Through the reflective teaching practice in recent two years, it is found that the students’ interest of learning is greatly stimulated. Under the similar condition of the contents, topic number and difficulty in the examination to previous years, the examination score of physical optics has also been greatly improved. It is especially important that the students’ initiative and creative learning ability in the field of physical optics has been highly increased and the teaching effect has been enhanced obviously.

Enhancing Teaching and Learning for Basic Electrical Engineering Course Using Simulation as a Tool

One of the common difficulties faced by an entrant of an undergraduate course studying Electrical Engineering is in understanding the fundamentals of Alternating circuits (a.c.). In order to address the identified difficulty, modern engineering tool was introduced to enhance the learning in a.c. circuits as simulation tool plays an important role within the frame of teaching and learning in education across the world. With the performance of students in continuous internal examination (CIE) being less, there was a need to improvise their understanding the concepts of a.c. circuit, hence this activity was planned and implemented. The activity was initiated with the introduction to Personal computer Simulation Program with Integrated Circuit Emphasis (PSPICE) simulation tool. Simulation tool was applied in designing structured learning experiences and it was targeted to enhance teamwork competencies and understand the fundamentals of a.c. circuits. Students were trained to simulate complete and well-formed circuits which helped their learning environment suitable for supplementing traditional method of chalk and talk instruction. The activity was concluded by a feedback survey to measure the effectiveness of learning through simulation assignment on teachingl it helped them to understand theoretical concepts better. It also showed increased involvement in learning during the activity. The performance in CIE was compared with semester end examination (SEE), and it was found that the students' performance in SEE showed significant improvements in understanding the concepts of a.c. circuits. The work presented in this paper summarizes the effectiveness of simulation package used in enhancing teaching and learning in fundamental course of electrical engineering.

D. I. BLOKHINTSEV – SCIENTIST AND TEACHER. THE SPIRITUAL FOUNDATIONS OF SCIENTIFIC WORK

The aim of the publication is to state the creative principles of activity of the outstanding scientist and teacher Dmitry Ivanovich Blokhintsev (1/10/1908 – 1/29/1979) – the organizer and the first director of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Researches in Dubna in 1956–1965, one of the pioneers of Nuclear Science and Atomics, the corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. The author of the article shares memories about the teacher and the research supervisor, and gives a peculiar report on realization of ideas of D. I. Blokhintsev. D. I. Blokhintsev had the special, original point of view on spiritual bases of scientific creativity that was directly reflected in his research and pedagogical activity. There are two fundamental aspects of pedagogics. On the one hand, it is the science possessing own specific laws and methods. On the other hand, the pedagogics is an art which methods, unlike scientific methodologies, can’t be acquired by formal and logical schemes. They are broadcast from one personality to another in direct communication. Thus possibly the «correspondence» assimilation of methods of outstanding teachers is inefficient as a rule. Not enough attention in the press is paid to this informal aspect of pedagogics in the view of difficulty of its description and analysis. The discussed D. I. Blokhintsev’s heritage is valuable from positions of the characteristic of pedagogics as arts of creative skill transfer. At first sight, it can seem paradoxical that this part of pedagogics is considered in connection with work in the field of the Quantum Field Theory and Cosmology – one of the most formalized fields of Theoretical Physics. However, the science, as well as pedagogics, considering it from top-level creativity, is becoming some kind of art too. One more important direction of work of D. I. Blokhintsev continued by the author of the publication in the book «Principles of the Quantum Universe» is emphasized. It is connected with the development of idea about vacuum as a source of all variety of the material world surrounding us. This deep world outlook idea includes both philosophical and religious aspects. D. I. Blokhintsev was presented the Order of Saints of Cyril and Methodius of the 1st degree (Bulgaria, 1970) for his fundamental course «Bases of Quantum Mechanics» published in nine languages. The scientist was the chairman of the organizing committees of 17 international conferences «Science, Philosophy and Religion» held in Dubna from 1990 to 2015 together with Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Moscow Spiritual Academy in Sergiev Posad, Fund of Andrew the FirstCalled, and Center of National Glory of Russia. D. I. Blokhintsev not only has enriched world science with fundamental works in the field of Solid State Physics and Statistical Physics, Acoustics, Physics Of Reactors And Nuclear Power, Quantum Mechanics, Quantum Field Theory and Quantum Electrodynamics, Physics Of High Energy and an Atomic Nucleus, Philosophy and Methodology of Science, but also left the reserve stimulating creative scientific activity for future generation. The article shows how the principles of scientific creativity of D. I. Blokhintsev work in Modern Physics and Cosmology of the Universe.

Research on Teaching Methods of Automatic Control Systems

Automatic control systems is the specialized fundamental course of automation major. The teaching effect of this course will influence the learning of the post-requisites. It’s important to improve the teaching quality of this course. This paper analyzed the problems of existing teaching methods. According to these problems, teaching reform methods were proposed to engage and motivate students’ initiative, strengthen the students’ capability of analyzing and solving problems.

A Systematic Approach To Teaching Critical Thinking Skills To Electrical And Computer Engineering Undergraduates

Coursework that instills patterns of rigorous logical thought has long been a hallmark of the engineering curriculum. However, today’s engineering students are expected to exhibit a wider range of thinking capabilities both to satisfy ABET requirements and to prepare the students to become successful practitioners. This paper presents the initial results from a systematic effort to incorporate broader critical thinking instruction and assessment into electrical and computer engineering education as part of a university-wide quality enhancement program. All incoming freshmen are given explicit and implicit instruction in critical thinking in ENGR 100: Introduction to Engineering and other engineering fundamentals courses, using the Paul-Elder framework of critical thinking to define and operationalize critical thinking. This critical thinking foundation is reinforced later in the disciplinary courses so that students integrate critical thinking with the basic principles and practices of engineering. In the Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) program, at the sophomore level, students use critical thinking skills which were developed during their engineering fundamentals courses, to analyze requirements and constraints which would apply in real-world design projects. At the junior level, similar use of critical thinking is applied in an introductory computing methods course; and at the senior level, critical thinking skills are again strengthened and assessed in the capstone design course and in the professional issues and current topics seminar. The latter course emphasizes understanding of professional ethics and current topics in electrical and computer engineering. Initial data from this pilot implementation indicates statistically significant improvement in critical thinking skills in ECE students who have progressed through this sequence, and as a side benefit, it appears that writing skills also improve.

Undergraduate Project in Compressor Rig Design, Fabrication, and Testing for Complete Engineering Training

An ambitious project in propulsion was introduced as part of the final-year integrator project offerings of the mechanical and aerospace engineering programs at École Polytechnique de Montréal in 2011–2012. It has been running successfully for the past three academic years. The project consists in the design, fabrication, and placement into service of a functional instrumented multistage compressor test rig, including the compressor, for research in compressor aerodynamics. A team of 15–17 senior-year undergraduate engineering students is given a set of design and performance specifications and measurement requirements, an electric motor and drive, a data acquisition system, and some measurement probes. They must complete the project in two semesters with a budget on the order of Can$15,000. The compressor is made from rapid prototyping to keep production cost and time reasonable. However, the required rotation speed of 7200 rpm stretches the limits of the plastic material and presents the same structural challenges as industrial compressors running at higher speeds. The students are split into subteams according to the required disciplines, namely, compressor aerodynamics, general aerodynamics, structures, dynamics, mechanical design and integration, instrumentation, and project management. For the initial phase, which covers the first two months, the students receive short seminars from experts in academia and industry in each discipline and use the knowledge from fundamental engineering courses to analytically model the different components to come up with a preliminary design. In the second phase, covering three to six, the students are trained at commercial simulation tools and use them for detailed analysis to refine and finalize the design. In each of the first two phases, the students present their work in design reviews with a jury made up of engineers from industry and supervising professors. During the final phase, the compressor is built and tested with data acquisition and motor control programs written by the students. Finally, the students present their results with comparison of measured performance with numerical and analytical predictions from the first two phases and hand over their compressor rig with design and test reports as well as a user manual and an assembly/maintenance manual. This complete project allows the students to put into practice virtually all the courses of their undergraduate engineering curriculum while giving them an extensive taste of the rich and intellectually challenging environment of gas turbine and turbomachinery engineering.

Development of a comprehensive assessment technique to invigorate students' problem-solving skills and deter cheating

It is a long-standing belief of most instructors that the assignment of graded homework to students is very useful in the process of teaching fundamental engineering courses. Results of several studies have also revealed that working on homework assignments with a significant independent effort enables students to develop higher cognitive level creative problem solving skills that they need in school (for example, to perform better in exams) and as practicing engineers. However, the availability and use of textbook solution manuals and other unapproved outside sources have hindered students from achieving the skills. Previous studies indicated that almost 90% of students used text book solution manuals at least once without permission and students with no access to solution manuals performed better than those who have. These two findings indicate that there is a need for developing alternative techniques that can possibly enhance homework assignments in order to stimulate the independent creative problem-solving skills of students. In this project, readily available and new alternate techniques to enhance traditional homework assignments have been identified, and a novel comprehensive assessment technique has been developed and implemented. The impact and effectiveness of the technique has been studied via conducting a survey and the comparison of exam averages of three semesters with and without the implementation of the technique. The results indicate that the technique helps deter cheating enhances critical thinking and problem solving skills of students and improve their performance in exams. Furthermore, the implementation of the technique is believed to have boosted students learning of the material of an undergraduate Engineering Mechanics: Dynamics course given at a large public university.

Effect analyses of E-learning platform on nursing undergraduates' self-learning competencies of fundamental nursing course

Objective To explore the effect of E-learning platform on nursing undergraduates' self-learning competencies of fundamental nursing course. Method 176 nursing undergraduates in their second year were included in the study, and investigation about self-learning competencies was carried out before and after the E-learning platform applying in the fundamental nursing course and the use condition was investigated after its usage. Paired t-test was used to compare the scores of self-rating scale for self-directedness in learning (SRSSDL), Wilcoxon rank sum test was used to compare the examination scores level, and the use condition was analyzed by descriptive statistics. Results Except learning strategies, after the application of E-learning, SRSSDL score of each dimension and the total score were significantly higher than that before application(P<0.05), and the total score was improved (5.6±23.0), (P=0.002). The examination scores was significantly increased than that of the before (P<0.01), the rate of excellent and good was improved 24.54%. more than 90% of the students thought that E-learning could meet their learning needs and improve the learning ability. Conclusion The nursing undergraduates' self-learning competencies of fundamental nursing course and the scores can be significantly improved by applying E-learning course platform. But more efforts are needed to make its effect maximized. Key words: E-learning; Nursing undergraduates; Self-learning competency; Fundamental nursing

A Two-Stage Assessment of the Remote Engineering Lab VISIR at Al-Quds University in Palestine

Engineering labs are an essential part in engineering education, since they provide practical knowledge for students, illustrate concepts and principles, and improve technical skills. Remote labs allow devices, equipment, and instrumentations to be shared with other universities. In addition, they relax time and space constraints, and are capable of being adapted to the pace of each student; in the case, there was insufficient time in the laboratory. This paper describes an empirical study, which embeds two stages of assessment. In the first stage, we are concerned with finding out the level of flexibility when applying the engineering remote lab VISIR as a contemporary remote lab technology in the engineering faculty at Al-Quds University in Jerusalem in Palestine, and whether the engineering students will accept such technology to interact with in their future lab courses or not. In the second stage of the assessment study, a more in-depth comparative analysis will be carried out in order to have a categorization of VISIR in the landscape of the engineering labs, such as hands-on and simulations. The three lab approaches will be compared with each other by means of an experimental testing based on assessment criteria that are in accordance with the fundamental course objectives of engineering instructional labs: student’s retention rate and satisfaction survey, as well as their performance.

Task-based Language Teaching in General English Classrooms: A Case Study in Engineering Faculties in Iran

Teaching General English, as a fundamental course in all the non-English majors, at universities in Iran has constantly been considered vital among the scholars' concerns. Thus, the TEFL researchers have always attempted to study and analyze the currently practice teaching methodologies at different levels in order to introduce the most efficient ones to the practitioners in the field. Therefore, to improve the quality and efficiency of teaching general English at universities, the researchers in the present study have tried to explore the currently practiced general English teaching methodologies for engineering students in Islamic Azad University, Yadegar-e Emam Khomeini (RAH) Shahre Rey Branch. In other words, they have attempted to reflect on a comparative study of two globally popular teaching methodologies namely; Task-based and Task- supported at this university to present the more efficient one to the target community. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n4p587

Project-based learning in Geotechnics: cooperative versus collaborative teamwork

Since 2007/2008 project-based learning models have been used to deliver two fundamental courses on Geotechnics in University of Aveiro, Portugal. These models have evolved and have encompassed either cooperative or collaborative teamwork. Using data collected in five editions of each course (Soil Mechanics I and Soil Mechanics II), the different characteristics of the models using cooperative or collaborative teamwork are pointed out and analysed, namely in terms of the students’ perceptions. The data collected include informal feedback from students, monitoring of their marks and academic performance, and answers to two sets of questionnaires: developed for these courses, and institutional. The data indicate students have good opinion of the project-based learning model, though collaborative teamwork is the best rated. The overall efficacy of the models was analysed (sum of their effectiveness, efficiency and attractiveness). The collaborative model was found more adequate.

The Winds of Change Revisited: Progress Towards Building a Culture of Evidence‐Based Dentistry

In 2008, Texas A&M University Baylor College of Dentistry launched a comprehensive four-year curriculum in evidence-based dentistry (EBD) along with a series of faculty development initiatives to create an EBD culture. The aim of this study was to determine the institution's success in achieving this goal. The assessment tool used was the PEAK instrument, which measures respondents' EBD Practices, Experience, Attitudes, and Knowledge. Two EBD-trained classes of students and one class untrained in EBD (approximately 100 students in each class) were assessed annually. The faculty were assessed before and after completion of the initiative. Nearly all students responded, with samples ranging from 87 to 102; the faculty response rates were 53% (62/117) in 2009 and 66% in 2013 (81/123). In the results, the trained students scored significantly higher in knowledge than the untrained students at each of the first three PEAK administrations (p≤0.001). Regarding confidence in appraising a research report, the first trained group significantly gained in appropriate use of statistical tests (p<0.001), while the second trained group significantly gained in this aspect and five others (p≤0.032). At the final PEAK administration, the second trained group agreed more than the untrained group that EBD was important for the practice of dentistry (p<0.001). Faculty comfort level with reading peer-reviewed articles increased significantly from 2009 to 2013 (p=0.039). Faculty members who participated in the summer EBD Fundamentals course (n=28) had significantly higher EBD knowledge scores than those who did not participate (p=0.013), and their EBD attitudes and practices were more positive (p<0.05). Students and faculty trained in EBD were more knowledgeable and exhibited more positive attitudes, supporting a conclusion that the college has made substantial progress towards achieving an EBD culture.