Largest Technical University Research Articles

Does question order matter on online math assessments? A big data analysis of undergraduate mathematics final exams

AbstractBackgroundThe sudden growth in online instruction due to COVID‐19 restrictions has given renewed urgency to questions about remote learning that have remained unresolved. Web‐based assessment software provides instructors an array of options for varying testing parameters, but the pedagogical impacts of some of these variations has yet to be examined.ObjectivesThe current study examines whether question order affects student performance on online college math assessments. Drawing on the literature of testing and math anxiety, we hypothesized that difficult questions near the beginning of an assessment would have a destructive effect on student confidence, which would in turn have a deleterious effect on their performance.MethodsWe employed an observational ‘big data’ methodology, analysing 23,468 final exams completed by students in 10 different courses over eight semesters at a Math Emporium in a large technical university in the eastern United States. Students were freshmen and sophomores enrolled in non‐engineering math courses. We regressed the final score on the difficulty level of the first and second questions, controlling for several other factors.Results and ConclusionsWe found that several factors—day of the week, amount of time before the deadline, number of minutes spent on the exam—have more of an impact on score than question order. This pattern was consistent across sexes.TakeawaysOur findings contradict some previous studies, which have found that difficult early questions degrade student performance, and that this affect is more pronounced in females. This work enriches our understanding of how students respond to online assessment.

Attending lectures in person, hybrid or online—how do students choose, and what about the outcome?

As a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic, most courses at a large technical university were adapted so that students had a free choice of whether to attend lectures on-site or online; in addition, in many courses, lecture recordings were available. At the subsequent exam session, over 17,000 student-survey responses were collected regarding attendance choices, learning behavior, interest in the course, perception of the exam, and recommendations to future students. A total of 27 learner attributes and their relationships were investigated. In addition, conditional attributes and free-response statements were analyzed, and the students’ exam grades were retrieved to gauge their performance. We found only minute differences with respect to exam performance, but the analysis indicates distinctly different preferences and constraints in taking advantage of learning opportunities. We also found some indications that performance differences might be larger for interactive-engagement courses. The results of the analysis may be key to answering why at many universities, faculty report that live-lecture attendance has decreased more strongly than expected with the availability of new, virtual attendance modes.

Distributed Cognition and exam preparation in higher education: what sources students use before and during the Covid-19 pandemic

Abstract What ‘sources’ of knowledge do higher education students draw on, to prepare for exams? And has the pandemic made any difference? The study presented in this paper addresses these questions, in the belief that gaining awareness of the sources through which students learn is important for the instructional design of the courses and the evaluation methods as well. Framed within the ‘Distributed Cognition’ theory, the study is based on a questionnaire proposed in July 2021 (summer exam session) to all the students of two schools at Politecnico di Milano (the largest technical university in Italy); 5,369 students responded (16.5% of the total). The results show that students normally resort to a wide range of resources (lectures, lecturer’s slides, group work with other students, notes taken by other students, etc.) and that, in the Covid-19 time, recorded lectures and ‘exercises’ (i.e. practical sessions with a teacher assistant) skyrocket in their perception of relevance, overcoming (almost all) other sources. Academies will need to face the challenge of students advocating for keeping this kind of support even after the Covid-19 era, which has the potential of revolutionising the way universities work, leading towards blended forms of education.

Using Assignment Logs to Enhance Self-regulation Skills

Self-regulation play a key role on undergraduates’ knowledge, skills, and engagement in flipped classroom. However, some students cannot complete assignment due to failure of time management, which is a critical skill of self-regulation (SR). Therefore, a tool is required to support self-regulation. Assignment log is a key tool for maintaining self-regulation, including self-efficacy, time management, and help-seeking. This study aimed to study the usage of the assignment logs in flipped classroom and lecture based-learning on self-efficacy, time management, and help-seeking, compared with flipped classroom and lecture based-learning without the assignment logs. The participants included two groups, which one had 41 undergraduate students and another one consisted of 26 students who are part of an electronic engineering program at a large technical university in Bangkok, Thailand. The ANOVA results revealed that there was different self-efficacy, time management, and help seeking between learning with the assignment log and other lecture-based learning without the assignment log and flipped classroom without the assignment log. Students who have learned with the assignment log perceived self-efficacy and time management more than lecture-based learning method and flipped classroom methods. This study provides insight into the importance of the assignment logs to support students’ self-regulation.

A Comparison Study of Student’s Achievement Using Assignment Log

College students can engage in a variety of activities that benefit their lives and studies. While time management and allocation may appear to be extremely important to post-secondary students, it is also associated with a wide range of difficult skills that require students to manage time in order to complete tasks. This research presented an experiment to compare an effectiveness of assignment logs based on students’ learning achievement. The participants included 68 undergraduate students who were a part of an electronic engineering program at a large technical university in Bangkok. The results using Analysis of Variance and Tukey post hoc test presented that student who learned with assignment logs had higher learning achievement (p < 0.001) and time management (p < 0.05) than those who learned without assignment logs. In assignment logs, assignment scores were a statistically significant effect on learning achievement (p < 0.01) and assignment logs improved students’ assignment scores and learning achievement (p < 0.01).

Automating Research Data Management Using Machine-Actionable Data Management Plans

Many research funders mandate researchers to create and maintain data management plans (DMPs) for research projects that describe how research data is managed to ensure its reusability. A DMP, being a static textual document, is difficult to act upon and can quickly become obsolete and impractical to maintain. A new generation of machine-actionable DMPs (maDMPs) was therefore proposed by the Research Data Alliance to enable automated integration of information and updates. maDMPs open up a variety of use cases enabling interoperability of research systems and automation of data management tasks. In this article, we describe a system for machine-actionable data management planning in an institutional context. We identify common use cases within research that can be automated to benefit from machine-actionability of DMPs. We propose a reference architecture of an maDMP support system that can be embedded into an institutional research data management infrastructure. The system semi-automates creation and maintenance of DMPs, and thus eases the burden for the stakeholders responsible for various DMP elements. We evaluate the proposed system in a case study conducted at the largest technical university in Austria and quantify to what extent the DMP templates provided by the European Commission and a national funding body can be pre-filled. The proof-of-concept implementation shows that maDMP workflows can be semi-automated, thus workload on involved parties can be reduced and quality of information increased. The results are especially relevant to decision makers and infrastructure operators who want to design information systems in a systematic way that can utilize the full potential of maDMPs.

No deal! Sweden cancelled agreement with Elsevier to stand up for Open Science

In this talk we highlight some results after the Swedish Bibsam consortium decided to cancel the agreement with scientific publisher Elsevier after 20 years as they couldn’t present a model that met the demands of the consortium.
 The requirements were immediate open access to all articles published in Elsevier journals by researchers affiliated to participating organisations as well as reading access to all articles in Elsevier’s journals. Bibsam also demanded a sustainable price model that enables a transition to open access publishing. We investigate the effects of this cancellation on Sweden’s largest technical university, the KTH Royal Institute of Technology.
 Method
 The study has two themes. First, we analyse the economics in earlier Bibsam-Elsevier agreements and what effects they have had for the budget and purchasing decisions made by the KTH Library. Second, we evaluate the response and the adapted behaviour of KTH researchers in the attempt to see if the cancellation has had severe negative effects for them.
 Results
 Our data collection gives an overview over the effects of the cancelled agreement at KTH. In particular, we observe how some of the money saved on the cancellation is used for individual article purchases and alternative services, thus lowering the effect of the cut-off. During our talk, we will also review some marketing strategies employed at KTH and Swedish libraries for making this cancellation process as smooth as possible.
 Limitations
 The short time period that has elapsed after the cancellation makes it difficult to see any long-time trends. The limited time frame also affects the validity of the researchers’ responses. Moreover, it is difficult to tell how the results from a case study from one university can be generalised to a global setting.

The effectiveness of communication channels for target audiences of large technical university

The effectiveness of communication channels for target audiences of large technical university

University Curriculum and Entrepreneurial Entry of Students from Technology-based Universities

This exploratory paper extends the literatures on student entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial entry by empirically investigating the relationship between the university curriculum of students and recent graduates from a technology-based university and their decision to become entrepreneurs after university enrolment. First, we provide rich empirical evidence on student entrepreneurship using the population of the alumni who obtained a Laurea Magistrale degree in the 2005-2009 period from Politecnico di Milano, the largest technical university in Italy. Then, we run econometric estimates and show that students and recent graduates are more likely to become entrepreneurs if they completed economics and management courses and exhibit a more specialized university curriculum. The effect of curriculum specialization is positively moderated by the final degree score when we focus on firm creation till the year after graduation.

Research Data Services at ETH-Bibliothek

The management of research data throughout its life-cycle is both a key prerequisite for effective data sharing and efficient long-term preservation of data. This article summarizes the data services and the overall approach to data management as currently practised at ETH-Bibliothek, the main library of ETH Zürich, the largest technical university in Switzerland. The services offered by service providers within ETH Zürich cover the entirety of the data life-cycle. The library provides support regarding conceptual questions, offers training and services concerning data publication and long-term preservation. As research data management continues to play a steadily more prominent part in both the requirements of researchers and funders as well as curricula and good scientific practice, ETH-Bibliothek is establishing close collaborations with researchers, in order to promote a mutual learning process and tackle new challenges.

HEALTH BEHAVIORS OF UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS: A COMPARISON OF PHYSICAL EDUCATION AND TECHNICAL FACULTIES

INTRODUCTION:A healthy lifestyle is related to healthy practices, such as healthy diet, avoidance of psychoactive stimulants, appropriate level of physical activity, preventive behaviors, coping with stress, positive social relationships, and adjustments. University students do not usually engage in a healthy lifestyle. Moreover, excessive alcohol drinking among students is truly a health problem. OBJECTIVES: The primary objective of this study was to examine the association between alcohol drinking and healthy behaviors in undergraduate students from a large public technical university in the south of Poland (Europe). METHODS: A cross-sectional study was used with participants of 283 second year undergraduate students, aged 22 years (SD = 2.92), including 88 (31%) students of Physical Education and 195 (69%) students of the Technical Faculty. The study used self-administered questionnaires of the Alcohol Drinking Scale (ADS) and the Health Behavior Inventory (HBI), which includes the following subscales: healthy habits nutrition (HHN), preventive behavior (PB), positive adjustments (PA), and healthy practices (HP). RESULTS: Alcohol drinking was negatively correlated with the total HBI and also with two subscales: HHN and PPB. The female students drank significantly less alcohol than the male students and presented with a higher level of health behavior, both in the total HBI and in the individual HBI subscales, except for PA. Students of Physical Education drank more alcohol, and scored higher in preventive behaviors, than the students of Technical Faculties. CONCLUSION: It seems necessary to conduct general health education as part of prevention programs at the university, especially for male undergraduate students in the Physical Education faculty.

The Fourth International Conference on Ultra-Wideband and Ultra-Short Impulse Signals

The Fourth International Conference on Ultra-Wideband and Ultra-Short Impulse Signals (UWBUSIS'08) was held in the beautiful Crimea city of great ancient history, Sevastopol, Ukraine, September 15–19, 2008. The venue of the conference was one of the largest technical universities of Ukraine, Sevastopol National Technical University. Reports about the previous meetings can be found in the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Magazine, December 2002, pp. 92–94, and February 2005, pp. 193–196.

Administration and Management of Research at Kaunas University of Technology

Kaunas University of Technology (KTU) is the largest technical university in both Lithuania and the Baltic States. It contains 11 faculties, Panevezys branch with 2 faculties, library, high school (gymnasium), 14 research institutes and centres, 5 faculty institutes and 22 centres. Over 20 000 students are enrolled in studies including 500 Doctoral (Ph.D.) students; the academic staff exceeds 1000. The main study fields are as follows: technological, physical and social sciences, humanities, biomedicine. The University offers 36 Bachelor’s, 59 Master’s and 8 Master Engineer’s degree study programs. Lectures at the University are given in five different languages – Lithuanian, English, French, German and Russian. Students are enabled to frame their individual study plans that would meet their wishes, potential and future plans the best way. Scientific research and research-based studies are the basis of the University’s activity, therefore all members of University research-academic staff allot no less than one third of their working time for research. The University also employs more than one hundred of research staff whose main area of activity is research work. Participation in research projects is especially important for Master’s and Doctoral students, as it is a productive form of learning, allowing to gain practical experience and take part in the creative scientific process. Those scientists who have done research as students, even if they do not become researchers, are exposed to the newest technological advances, develop skills and a scientific approach. In turn, this enables science to renew itself and retain its vitality. Research and technological development is funded by various sources: the State budget, the Lithuanian State Science and Studies Foundation, State and branch programmes, local and foreign economy subjects, and international programmes. Research and technological development funding is shown in thousands LTL in Figure 1.

Valid Assessment of Writing and Access to Academic Discourse

One way to improve students' access to and retention in post-secondary degree progams is to assess their readiness for such programs accurately. To place deaf and hard-of-hearing students in preparatory courses and to determine their readiness for degree programs more accurately, a direct measure of writing was developed for deaf and hard-of-hearing students at a large technical university. The purpose of this study was to estimate the concurrent and predictive validity of this measure. The Test of Written English (Educational Testing Service, 1992) served as the criterion in the concurrent validity study, and student success in the university's gateway freshman composition course served as the criterion in the predictive validity study. Results provide evidence of the concurrent and predictive validity of the measure, supporting its use for course placement and early planning purposes.

Information systems research at RWTH Aachen

With about 8.000 researchers and 40.000 students, RWTH Aachen is the largest technical university in Europe. The science and engineering departments and their industrial collaborators offer a lot of challenges for database research.The chair Informatik V (Information Systems) focuses on the theoretical analysis, prototypical development, and practical evaluation of meta information systems. Meta information systems, also called repositories, document and coordinate the distributed processes of producing, integrating, operating, and evolving database-intensive applications.Our research approaches these problems from a technological and from an application perspective.On the one hand, we pursue theory and system aspects of the integration of deductive and object-oriented technologies. One outcome of this work is a deductive object manager called ConceptBase which has been developed over the past eight years and is currently used by many research groups and industrial teams throughout the world.On the other hand, a wide range of application-driven projects aims at building a sound basis of empirical knowledge about the demands on meta information systems, and about the quality of proposed solutions. They address application domains as diverse as requirements engineering, telecommunications, cooperative engineering, organization-wide quality management, evolution of chemical production processes, and medical knowledge management. They share the vision of supporting wide-area distributed cooperation not just by low-level interoperation technology but by exploiting conceptual product and process modeling.Under the direction of M. Jarke, Informatik V comprises three research groups with a total of twenty senior researchers and doctoral students: distributed information systems (leader: Dr. Manfred Jeusfeld), process information systems (Dr. Klaus Pohl), and knowledge-based systems (Prof. Wolfgang Nejdl). Database-related activities also exist in the Software Engineering and Applied Mathematics groups.