Student Intake Research Articles

Improving the delivery of veterinary services in India.

In pursuit of effective veterinary service delivery, the objectives of this study were threefold: (i) reduce the shortage of technical personnel in veterinary universities (VUs) and animal husbandry departments (AHDs), (ii) identify collaborative areas between VUs and AHDs, and (iii) build the capacity of the veterinary and animal husbandry sector. Primary data were collected from all the 16 veterinary colleges and AHDs in five south Indian states on: (i) student intake and the out-turn of veterinary graduates, (ii) technical personnel--existing and required at various levels, (iii) specific areas of collaboration where VUs and AHDs need each other and can extend support to each other, and (iv) areas in which university faculty and field veterinarians would benefit from further training. Two focus group discussions were held with top administrators of VUs and AHDs to collect qualitative data. The results revealed that there are not enough veterinary graduates to meet the needs of the system and that there is a shortage of faculty, field veterinarians and para-veterinarians. Both focus groups identified areas for collaboration and capacity building to improve veterinary service delivery. The results conclusively demonstrated that India's veterinary service delivery is constrained, not due to a lack of organisations or programmes, but due to the inability of the organisations to collaborate with each other. To improve the effectiveness of veterinary service delivery it will be necessary to: admit more graduate students, support the establishment of new colleges; recruit faculty, field veterinarians and para-veterinarians; remandate the Directorates of Extension at VUs to develop linkages with AHDs; allocate funds ('special central grants') for infrastructure development to all AHDs and veterinary colleges; establish one model veterinary college that follows international standards on veterinary education and create four regional academic staff training colleges exclusively for the purpose of developing the capacity of the veterinary and animal husbandry sector. Action plans to implement these recommendations are also suggested.

PUBLIC RELATIONS IN PRIVATE UNIVERSITIES IN CENTRAL JAVA: CREATING INNOVATION TO ATTRACT STUDENTS’ INTEREST

Nowadays, The competition among private universities especially in Central Java is getting tougher. Each higher education tries to achieve their goal which is generally to attract students’ interest which will influence the higher student intake in each academic year. This study tried to investigate the creative innovation created by the private university to attract students’ interest which will give influence in students intake. This study employed interview and literature study for data collections. The data were then analyzed qualitatively to answer the posed research questions. This study involved 8 private universities in Central Java. The result of this study showed that the public relations role in private university is as communication technician, expert prescriber, communication facilitator and also as problem solver facilitator. Besides that, the public relations practitioners in private university have tried to create innovation program for attracting students’ interest. This innovation gave positive impact on the intake of the private university at least 5 % - 20%.

청소년 대상의 현미-채식 급식 프로그램이 주관적 건강상태, BMI 및 혈액지표에 미치는 효과

This study aimed to identify the effect of brown rice-vegetable school meals program on the subjective health status, BMI and hematological parameters of high school students. This is a single group pre-post study design that includes 17 high school boys and 18 high school girls. Students were catered for lunch and dinner with brown rice and a vegetarian diet for 12 weeks at the school. The collected data on subjective health status, BMI levels and hematological parameters were measured in pre and post, and changes were compared by paired t-test. Subjective health status of the participants has improved and BMI was reduced. Blood Hct, Hb, Hct, total protein and albumin have also been reduced. Ca and triglyceride levels decreased in females. However, all levels were reduced within the normal range. These results show that brown rice-vegetable intake of high school students reduces weight and helps them prevent from acquiring cardiovascular diseases in adulthood through the reduction of serum triglyceride and in practicing healthy eating habits.

Poor performers or just plain poor?: Assumptions in the neo-liberal account of school failure

This article argues that schools in decline in educational markets may not be as ineffective as neo-liberals assume. Rather, recent New Zealand research suggests that the fortunes of schools in the marketplace largely reflect the characteristics of their student intakes. Schools in decline typically have poor intakes. Such schools may be less attractive to parents than middle class schools. Schools with poor intakes also have to cope with often overwhelming learning and pastoral needs which constrain their ability to offer demanding academic programmes. Allowing such schools to fail and close therefore appears to be a case of punishing the victim. State intervention is required.

Massification in Ghanaian Higher Education: Implications for Pedagogical Quality, Equity Control and Assessment

This paper examined the quality of higher education in Ghana within the context of significant educational expansion in institutions of higher learning. It identifies bottlenecks in Ghanaian Public Higher Education impairing Government’s policy on Higher Education to expand access without compromising quality monitoring. Social justice and economic sufficiency discourses in Higher Education as a right have precipitated massive student intake. Large student enrolment however has not correlated with requisite funding leading to staff attrition rate, deterioration of physical infrastructure etc. This mismatch between massive student intake and dwindling number of academic staff and poor infrastructure contributes to undermining pedagogical quality, equity and effective student assessment. Findings from this survey suggest even though quality assurance issues are on course in Ghanaian universities, nevertheless, unless there is a new paradigm to funding public universities, teaching quality, equity and student assessments can become undermined.

The Factors affecting for Sweet Foods Intake of Middle School Students in Incheon Area

The Factors affecting for Sweet Foods Intake of Middle School Students in Incheon Area

Dietary intake in Swedish medical students during 2007-2012.

The dietary intake in Swedish medical students has been reported for the periods 1987-1993 and 1994-2006. To analyse dietary intake in medical students between 2007 and 2012, in relation to Nordic Nutrition Recommendations, to previous surveys and to a contemporary Swedish population. Nutrient intake was calculated from 3-day food records conducted by 698 medical students. The differences between surveys were evaluated using a t-test and the changes over time by linear regression. The energy intake in valid female and male reporters was 8.7 and 11.9 MJ respectively. The intake of protein, fat and alcohol, as proportions of energy (E%) and dietary fibre, was within recommendations. The intake of most micronutrients was above recommendations, except for vitamin D, and in women, iron and folate. In women, E% fat increased between 2007 and 2012, while E% carbohydrate decreased. Compared to the 1994-2006 period, medical students in the present survey consumed less carbohydrates and more fat, more folate and more vitamin E. The students were more compliant with the dietary recommendations than the same age group of the Swedish population. Energy intake in medical students, and dietary intake with some exceptions, remained stable during 1987-2012, and close to the Nordic Nutrition Recommendations for most nutrients. Between 2007 and 2012, fat intake increased and carbohydrate intake decreased significantly in women and also tended to do so in men. Similar trends were seen in the Swedish population, possibly indicating the impact of diet trends such as the Low-Carb/High-Fat diet.

The future of sonographic education.

There is a shortage of fully trained and qualified sonographers. It seems that the traditional training route of an undergraduate degree in radiography or midwifery followed by work experience and then entry to a postgraduate course in sonography is not able to produce enough new sonographers to keep pace with increasing demand and the loss of experienced staff due to retirement. In addition, the pressure on ultrasound departments leads to restriction in the number of clinical placements that can be provided. Clinical placements are an essential part of the training process, where trainees acquire hands-on scanning skills, while supervised by experienced staff. There is clearly a need for alternative pathways to broaden the intake of new students and produce more fully trained and competent sonographers.

Grades across Universities over Time

This paper examines the determinants of degree outcomes in a sample of UK universities from 2004 to 2012. We use stochastic frontier methods to account for differences in efficiency across universities and over time. The quality of the student intake and the university's research performance are the main determinants of degree outcomes. There is no evidence of grade inflation at the boundary between upper and lower second‐class honours. Decomposing the determinants of degree outcomes, we find that good entry grades yield a higher return in traditional universities than in new universities. Although high‐quality universities award more good degrees, we find little evidence that universities of different quality differ in their propensity to inflate grades over time.

Book Review: Redesigning America’s community colleges: A clearer path to student success by Bailey, T. R., Jaggars, S. S., & Jenkins, D. (2015)

Bailey, T. R., Jaggars, S. S., & Jenkins, D. (2015). Redesigning America's community colleges: A clearer path student success. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 304 pp. US$35.00 (hardcover). ISBN 978-0-674-36828-6.How would we design the open-access community maximize the probability of student completion? Certainly not in the way most community colleges are organized today, according Thomas R. Bailey, Shanna Smith Jaggars, and Davis Jenkins in Redesigning America s Community Colleges: A Clearer Path Student Success. Drawing on thorough review of research, including many studies from Columbia University's Community College Research Center, they argue that the colleges are highly efficient at providing access courses in self-service or style that increased opportunity for postsecondary after World War II, but that thwarts the ambitions of students today and leaves the colleges ill prepared meet contemporary demands for increased degree completion. And although many wellintended initiatives, notably those undertaken through Achieving the Dream, have attempted increase completion rates, the authors point evidence that these projects have not substantially enhanced outcomes or-more significantly-altered the colleges' underlying organizational structures or cultures.Thus, the book's intent: provide framework for the wholesale redesign of the community college, freeing it from structures and of the college that fix the institution's gaze on enrollment and divert institutional attention from the goal of student development and success over the long term. At the heart of this redesign is revised curriculum, structured as parsimonious and easily understood set of rather than an overwhelming array of course offerings from which students, with minimal help from overworked advisers, must construct route the achievement of their educational goals. These guided pathways, described in Chapter 1, are not merely plans of detailing course requirements for transfer or degree. They are coherent, prescribed curricula developed by teams of faculty members and student affairs professionals. For students with definite career or transfer goals, these pathways consist of a default sequence of courses, each with clear learning outcomes that build across the curriculum into coherent set of skills, which in turn are aligned with requirements for successful transfer or career advancement (p. 22). For undecided students, the pathways are equally prescribed and rigorously thought out, but they are exploratory in nature, exposing students to educational and career options within broad fields or meta-majors (p. 22). Asking students select pathway puts immediately on well-defined curricular sequence without overwhelming with numerous course options.The authors also focus on complementary changes other practices (p. 50) in student guidance, instruction, and remediation (detailed in Chapters 2, 3, and 4, respectively). Here, Bailey and his colleagues show how each of these critical functions has been shaped by the self-service cafeteria framework in ways that impede completion. Student intake services such as orientation, in-person and online advising, and student success courses are well-meaning but disconnected from students' academic programs of study (p. 67), offered in many cases on an optional, self-service basis, and focused primarily on providing information without teaching students selfadvise over time. Instruction is undertaken by faculty members who work in isolation from others and simply transmit knowledge with the occasional support of professional development programs that emphasize instructional techniques rather than the instructor's growth as an educator. And remediation has, in most cases, served as an off ramp from programs (p. 51), at best delaying entry into college-level programs and, in many cases, simply diverting them from those programs entirely (p. …

The influence of academic examinations on energy and nutrient intake in male university students.

BackgroundTaking examinations is central to student experience at University and may cause psychological stress. Although stress is recognised to impact on food intake, the effects of undertaking examinations on students’ dietary intake have not been well characterised. The purpose of this study was to assess how students’ energy and nutrient intake may alter during examination periods.MethodsThe study design was a within-subject comparison of students’ energy and nutrient intake during an examination period contrasted with that outside an examination period (baseline). A total of 20 male students from the University of Sheffield completed an automated photographic 4-d dietary record alongside four 24-h recalls in each time period. Daily energy and nutrient intake was estimated for each student by time period and change in energy and nutrient intake calculated. Intakes at baseline were compared to UK dietary recommendations. Cluster analysis categorised students according to their change in energy intake between baseline and the examination period. Non-parametric statistical tests identified differences by cluster.ResultsBaseline intakes did not meet recommendations for energy, non-milk extrinsic sugars, non-starch polysaccharide and sodium. Three defined clusters of students were identified: Cluster D who decreased daily energy intake by 12.06 MJ (n = 5), Cluster S who had similar energy intakes (n = 13) and Cluster I who substantially increased energy intake by 6.37 MJ (n = 2) between baseline and examination period. There were statistically significant differences (all p < 0.05) in change in intake of protein, carbohydrate, calcium and sodium between clusters. Cluster D recorded greater energy, carbohydrate and protein intakes than Cluster I at baseline.ConclusionsThe majority of students were dietary resilient. Students who demonstrated hypophagia in the examination period had a high energy and nutrient intake at baseline, conversely those who showed hyperphagia had a low energy and nutrient intake. These patterns require confirmation in studies including women, but if confirmed, there is need to address some students’ poor food choice especially during examinations.

Are there distinctive clusters of higher and lower status universities in the UK?

In 1992 the binary divide between universities and polytechnics was dismantled to create a nominally unitary system of higher education for the UK. Just a year later, the first UK university league table was published, and the year after that saw the formation of the Russell Group of self-proclaimed ‘leading’ universities. This paper asks whether there are distinctive clusters of higher and lower status universities in the UK, and, in particular, whether the Russell Group institutions can be said to constitute a distinctive elite tier. Cluster analysis of publicly available data on the research activity, teaching quality, economic resources, academic selectivity, and socioeconomic student mix of UK universities demonstrates that the former binary divide persists with Old (pre-1992) universities characterised by higher levels of research activity, greater wealth, more academically successful and socioeconomically advantaged student intakes, but similar levels of teaching quality, compared to New (post-1992) institutions. Among the Old universities, Oxford and Cambridge emerge as an elite tier, whereas the remaining 22 Russell Group universities appear to be undifferentiated from the majority of other Old universities. A division among the New universities is also evident, with around a quarter of New universities forming a distinctive lower tier.

How many dentists does Sri Lanka need? Modelling to inform policy decisions

This paper describes a model that has been used to inform government policy in Sri Lanka. The model has two components, representing supply and demand for dental-care services. The supply-side component (the dental workforce model) uses system dynamics to represent the career progression of dentists from recruitment and training at the University Dental School, through different career paths through to retirement. The demand-side model calculates a range of future demand scenarios for dental care, based on different assumptions about Sri Lanka’s potential future economic development. The combined model was used by the Sri Lankan government to plan better provision of state-funded dental care and the future university intake of dental students. Data collection for both models was challenging, and required some innovative research. The model itself, and its successful application, raise a number of wider issues concerning model implementation and acceptability by clients and model users.

Acculturation, Food Intake and Dietary Behaviors of Chinese College Students in Busan by Residential Period

Acculturation, Food Intake and Dietary Behaviors of Chinese College Students in Busan by Residential Period

Effects of Pistachios on Nutrient Intake and Diet Quality in Female University Students

Effects of Pistachios on Nutrient Intake and Diet Quality in Female University Students

Relationships between student throughput variables and properties

Many different models have been designed to describe the plethora of factors that influence student throughput and success and how these factors affect throughput system variables and properties. System variables include headcounts (H) and successful credits (S) of throughput systems; some examples of system properties are the percentage of the new student intake graduating annually, and the average number of years to graduate or to drop out of a degree. However, no past study has defined the analytical relationships between these variables and properties from a process perspective – which was the purpose of this study. Three simple analytical equations were derived for 4-year degrees, and then geometrically interpreted. The behaviour of a simplified throughput system can be described by the position of a point in the admissible region of the H-S plane, with each point relating to a specific set of system properties. The successful credits ratio (S/H) is shown to be the ideal process efficiency ratio for throughput systems. The results were also extended to degrees of shorter duration. The behaviour of real throughput systems is broadly found to be similar to the behaviour of simplified throughput systems. In this study, only the mathematical foundations for the general relationships between throughput properties and throughput variables for a degree were established. The way in which this mathematical basis finds application in practice is illustrated for a few selected cases only, because of the specific focus of this paper.

Were calsium intake of univesity students concernd with dietary education from early childhood

Were calsium intake of univesity students concernd with dietary education from early childhood

The relationship between the energy intake ratio from fat and nutrient intakes of Japanese university students based on responses to a brief-type self-administered diet history questionnaire

The relationship between the energy intake ratio from fat and nutrient intakes of Japanese university students based on responses to a brief-type self-administered diet history questionnaire

Shifting race and class in student construction of identities at a South African university

The changing social and economic condition in South Africa has resulted in the rising number of middle-class Africans. These changing class dynamics have also seen the changes in the higher education environment, ensuring the intake of more African students into university. Race and class continues to mark student identity construction which has implications for social cohesion. This paper discusses how class troubles an essentialist construction of student racialised identities. We argue that whilst there are shifts in student relations fuelled by the changing class dynamics in society, there are also continuities – and yet these continuities do not proliferate in homogenous ways. The paper discusses the construction of African student identities and the role that class plays in marginalising same-race relations within the higher education environment. Class is illuminated through the urban/rural divide, the role of language and through a discourse of taste. This paper focuses on the constructions of a select group of African students who come from working-class and middle-class backgrounds at a South African institution situated at the nexus of social transformation. The analysis draws attention to class, and the subversion of power relations and hegemonic practices through the mobilisation of agency in students’ talk and action. This paper is important in highlighting changing student relations fuelled by the changing class dynamics and their implications for social cohesion.

Recruitment and selection strategies in optometric education towards addressing human resource disparities in sub-Saharan Africa

ABSTRACTThe dire need for eye care services and a dearth of human resources (HR) in sub-Saharan Africa motivated the setting up of new optometry programmes. However, to make a meaningful impact, geographical, gender, economic and educational disparities must additionally be addressed.Aqualitative study utilizing purposive sampling to select academic leadership and students from optometry programmes in sub-Saharan Africa was conducted. Individual and focus group interviews produced data that were coded and analysed using a deductive thematic analysis approach. The themes that emerged as contributing to disparities in access through recruitment and selection were institutional barriers (student intake numbers, programme marketing, minimum entry requirements, absence of pre-medical programme) and socio-economic barriers (finance, poor secondary school education, lack of knowledge of optometry, geographic location of institutions, gender). To address equity, institutions should engage with communities, market via community radio stations, offer pre-medical and bridging programmes, partner with governments and private funders to offer loans and bursaries and affirm females and rural applicants in recruitment and selection. In conclusion, universities must be socially accountable in all facets of education including recruitment and selection.