Lifelong Experience Research Articles

Back to the campus: lifelong experience of older learners in a university setting

ABSTRACT This study focuses on older participants’ experiences of and views on a lifelong learning program at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University in Hong Kong. As many third age adults tend not to have the opportunity to receive tertiary education when they were young, this program aims to fulfil their dream of studying at a university and boost their self-esteem and self-confidence. Using qualitative research methods, this research was conducted after the MiniU program (supported by the Institute of Active Aging of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University). Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 32 participants after the program. While participants had acquired knowledge and experience of university life from the Mini-U program, they also reported concerns and difficulties with participation including difficulties in memorizing course content and financial difficulties. The program has offered a unique opportunity for enhancing participants’ interpersonal relationships and wellbeing. The research also further informs the development of creative lifelong learning programs aimed at improving the well-being of older people.

Adverse Lifelong Experiences in Portuguese People Living With HIV: A Retrospective Study.

This study aimed to analyze the adverse life experiences encountered by people living with HIV in Portugal, analyze differences between men and women, and identify which experiences were related to HIV transmission modes-sexual activity or injection drug use. We used a sample of 328 participants with a mean age of 45.64, mostly men (79.6%), with a known diagnosis of HIV for 10.34 years. Women and persons who inject drugs reported significantly more adverse outcomes throughout life. Physical abuse during childhood was significantly associated with the sexual transmission mode, whereas having a parent sent to prison during childhood, physical violence, experiencing a life-threatening injury/illness (other than HIV) during adulthood, and injuring someone during adulthood were associated with injection drug use. Practical implications are discussed at the prevention and intervention levels.

Prospect and Practice of Teacher Induction in Nepal

The process of converting pre-service teaching into an in-service teacher is known as induction and this technique of teachers’ professional growth has been gaining momentum in the world of teacher education throughout the world. Nepal is a developing country and it has not started the teacher induction program formally yet. This study is an attempt to investigate the role and prospect of teacher induction. The study employed a descriptive method and used secondary sources to make arguments. For the argumentation, the study at first makes a claim and it is supported by already published literature. Those secondary sources of data comprise previous researchers, journals, and other standard publications. The study found that using induction, teachers around the world developed their professional abilities and their inhibitions and disappointments were removed since they got an opportunity to collaborate with professional teachers, it has become a life-long experience and different features and components of it made it more reliable and valid. The study suggests that it is extremely necessary to introduce a teacher induction program in all levels of education and if can be done teachers’ professional development can be practically achieved.

Developmental fronto-parietal shift of brain activation during mental arithmetic across the lifespan: A registered report protocol.

Arithmetic processing is represented in a fronto-parietal network of the brain. However, activation within this network undergoes a shift from domain-general cognitive processing in the frontal cortex towards domain-specific magnitude processing in the parietal cortex. This is at least what is known about development from findings in children and young adults. In this registered report, we set out to replicate the fronto-parietal activation shift for arithmetic processing and explore for the first time how neural development of arithmetic continues during aging. This study focuses on the behavioral and neural correlates of arithmetic and arithmetic complexity across the lifespan, i.e., childhood, where arithmetic is first learned, young adulthood, when arithmetic skills are already established, and old age, when there is lifelong arithmetic experience. Therefore, brain activation during mental arithmetic will be measured in children, young adults, and the elderly using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). Arithmetic complexity will be manipulated by the carry and borrow operations in two-digit addition and subtraction. The findings of this study will inform educational practice, since the carry and borrow operations are considered as obstacles in math achievement, and serve as a basis for developing interventions in the elderly, since arithmetic skills are important for an independent daily life.

Evidence that ageing yields improvements as well as declines across attention and executive functions.

Many but not all cognitive abilities decline during ageing. Some even improve due to lifelong experience. The critical capacities of attention and executive functions have been widely posited to decline. However, these capacities are composed of multiple components, so multifaceted ageing outcomes might be expected. Indeed, prior findings suggest that whereas certain attention/executive functions clearly decline, others do not, with hints that some might even improve. We tested ageing effects on the alerting, orienting and executive (inhibitory) networks posited by Posner and Petersen's influential theory of attention, in a cross-sectional study of a large sample (N = 702) of participants aged 58-98. Linear and nonlinear analyses revealed that whereas the efficiency of the alerting network decreased with age, orienting and executive inhibitory efficiency increased, at least until the mid-to-late 70s. Sensitivity analyses indicated that the patterns were robust. The results suggest variability in age-related changes across attention/executive functions, with some declining while others improve.

A qualitative exploration of exercise blog believability among emerging adult women

ABSTRACT Emerging adults aged 18–30 years are a unique population who have lifelong experience with digital media. This has contributed to comfort and familiarity with using the internet as a preferred source of information in particular with regard to exercise. Previous research suggests emerging adults may be conflicted about whether or not to believe the information encountered online. The purpose of this study was to explore what aspects of an exercise blog message are believed, and which aspects contribute to personal relevance for a population of emerging adult women. Using a qualitative descriptive design, one-on-one interviews were completed by the principal investigator with ten women (Mage = 25.6 years) residing in a Western Canadian province, all of whom had or were currently attending university. All interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim. Qualitative content analysis was used to examine and categorise the data, in line with qualitative description designs. Following data analysis, three themes emerged related to blog article believability: information relevance, selective believability, and projecting believability. Exercise blogs may provide an opportunity for some individuals to learn about and diversify personal exercise opportunities. Additionally, participants expressed concern for others, and the potential of these media to contribute to negative outcomes for individuals without prior knowledge in the health disciplines.

A Crack in the Looking-Glass Self: Hearing and Socialization

A significant problem of classic theories of socialization, such as Cooley’s looking-glass self, is that such theories fail to consider biological factors such as hearing in the process of socialization. To address this problem, I raised a two-pronged question: how does deafness affect social interactions upon which much of socialization is dependent and can the experiences of one person’s lifelong socialization help uncover limitations of a classic theory of socialization? The key study participant in this instrumental case study is an individual with moderately severe hearing loss and whose lifelong experiences were collected primarily through ethnographic field techniques. Findings from secondary data provide ample evidence that hearing loss can have serious effects on social interaction and socialization and findings from the individual case itself, while somewhat inconclusive, are suggestive of how hearing loss affected this individual during her lifetime, this being more strongly observed in the later stages of her socialization. Key points that emerge from this study are that (a) the complexity of socialization poses great challenges in teasing out its many factors, but (b) including hearing as a factor advances our insight of the process and (c) this in turn, has implications for how educators understand and teach the concept, and (d) this insight can increase our sensitivity for individuals with hearing loss.

URDU: 'احکام القرآن 'اور 'الفصول فی الاصول' از امام ابوبکر جصّاصؒ کا اسلوب و منہج

Books of Imām Abu Bakr Ahmad Bin Ali Al-Rāzi Al-Jaṣṣāṣ Hanafi (RA) (305-370 A.H) especially his juritic encyclopedic Tafsīr “Aḥkām-ul-Qur’ān” and its preface “Al-faṣūl-fil-Uṣūl” are included among the last compilations written after his accession to Hanafī throne. These books are an extract of his lifelong experiences and many important reference sources. On the whole, besides the commands and problems of Fiqh with its principles of jurisprudence, Ahkām-ul-Qur’ān and Al-Faṣūl-fil-Uṣūl encompass multiple sciences and artistic values like sciences of Hadith, dictionary, grammar, notation, poetry, eloquence, logic, philosophy, history, discussion or contest and criticism, etc. These sciences are collectively required for juristic deduction from the Qur’ānic and Ahādīth texts. However, this has transformed Tafsīr book into an encyclopedia of different sciences. This aspect reflects the methodology of many precedent scholars, prevalent in the comprehensive writings of that time.

An Analysis into the Contribution of Google Applications in the Successful Implementation of Online Education During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Purpose: The emergence of COVID-19 led the world to an unprecedented public health crisis. The outbreak and cause of COVID-19 have placed a wide range of social, political, and economic impacts. The negative impact placed on education is addressed using online education. This paper aims to find success in online education using google applications on regular days and pandemic periods to support the lifelong continuous learning experience. The focus of this study is to review students’ satisfaction with the web applications which are mandatory for online education. Methodology: The non-probability sampling technique is used to collect data for analysis. The new set of hypotheses are identified by using this sampling technique. The exploratory research method is followed to find better results on this topic. Survey questionnaires were prepared and delivered to higher education students of various colleges of various universities in and around our Dakshina Kannada district. The survey including questions on the mode of online education, their level of satisfaction, technologies used, internet facility, internet applications used for the online class. More than 1000 responses were received by the students who are experiencing online education and its platform. Findings/Result: The study aims to decide the regularity of use of the various features of Google applications. Students’ opinions toward online learning based on their involvements have been observed. The elements, modes, and tools which designed those students’ online education practices have also been considered. The analysis was conducted to identify a variety of applications available for online classroom education with their features that made them so important. Originality: The features of several internet applications were considered to find popularity in the online mode of education. This analysis may helpful for teachers, students, and administrators even after the pandemic period to conduct additional online courses in a parallel fashion along with traditional classrooms to improve the lifelong learning experience. Paper Type: Survey paper.

Spirituality and entrepreneurship: integration of spiritual beliefs in an entrepreneurial journey

Purpose The role of spirituality in entrepreneurship is a new area of inquiry that has emerged from different scholarly fields. There is no specific way to study spirituality as it rather depends on the context and influence of religious beliefs. This paper aims to study the integration of spirituality in the entrepreneurial journeys of individual entrepreneurs in Pakistan. Thereby focusing on the factors that set reassurance for entrepreneurs to practice their spiritual beliefs in an emerging market context. Design/methodology/approach Using a qualitative research approach and data from entrepreneurs in different businesses, this study examines how entrepreneurs reach the point where they are willing to run their businesses based on their spiritual beliefs. The data analysis technique used to study the entrepreneurs is the Gioia method of analysis, which enables key themes to emerge. Findings This study finds that the process through which Pakistani entrepreneurs run their businesses based on spiritual beliefs within their mission and goals can be considered as discerning spiritual beliefs, affirmation of spiritual beliefs and materializing beliefs into action. Each of these spiritual beliefs has been accumulated through lifelong learning and experience in which trust in business relationships is highlighted. Social implications The insights of this study can be applied to different entrepreneurial ventures to create a framework of entrepreneurial businesses that incorporate spirituality within their mission and vision statements. It can then be used to design education and training activities for other spiritual entrepreneurs to enable further entrepreneurial development in different communities. Originality/value Spirituality can alter the entrepreneurial nature of a business. This means that entrepreneurs who possess high spiritual beliefs can incorporate their spirituality within specific business functions to enable a more positive outcome. This study stands as the first in Pakistan to consider the ways entrepreneurs incorporate their spiritual beliefs in their entrepreneurial journey.

Advances in Epilepsy Surgery

BackgroundA large number of patients have epilepsy that is intractable and adversely affects a child's lifelong experience with addition societal burden that is disabling and expensive. The last two decades have seen a major explosion of new antiseizure medication options. Despite these advances, children with epilepsy continue to have intractable seizures. An option that has been long available but little used is epilepsy surgery to control intractable epilepsy. MethodsThis article is a review of the literature as well as published opinions. ResultsEpilepsy surgery in pediatrics is an underused modality to effectively treat children with epilepsy. Adverse effects of medication should be weighed against risks of surgery as well as risks of nonefficacy. ConclusionsWe discuss an approach to selecting the appropriate pediatric patient for consideration, a detailed evaluation including necessary evaluation, and the creation of an algorithm to approach patients with both generalized and focal epilepsy. We then discuss surgical options available including outcome data. New modalities are also addressed including high-frequency ultrasound and co-registration techniques including magnetic resonance imaging-guided laser therapy.

Group-level cortical functional connectivity patterns using fNIRS: assessing the effect of bilingualism in young infants.

.Significance: Early monolingual versus bilingual experience induces adaptations in the development of linguistic and cognitive processes, and it modulates functional activation patterns during the first months of life. Resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) is a convenient approach to study the functional organization of the infant brain. RSFC can be measured in infants during natural sleep, and it allows to simultaneously investigate various functional systems. Adaptations have been observed in RSFC due to a lifelong bilingual experience. Investigating whether bilingualism-induced adaptations in RSFC begin to emerge early in development has important implications for our understanding of how the infant brain’s organization can be shaped by early environmental factors.Aims: We attempt to describe RSFC using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) and to examine whether it adapts to early monolingual versus bilingual environments. We also present an fNIRS data preprocessing and analysis pipeline that can be used to reliably characterize RSFC in development and to reduce false positives and flawed results interpretations.Methods: We measured spontaneous hemodynamic brain activity in a large cohort () of 4-month-old monolingual and bilingual infants using fNIRS. We implemented group-level approaches based on independent component analysis to examine RSFC, while providing proper control for physiological confounds and multiple comparisons.Results: At the group level, we describe the functional organization of the 4-month-old infant brain in large-scale cortical networks. Unbiased group-level comparisons revealed no differences in RSFC between monolingual and bilingual infants at this age.Conclusions: High-quality fNIRS data provide a means to reliably describe RSFC patterns in the infant brain. The proposed group-level RSFC analyses allow to assess differences in RSFC across experimental conditions. An effect of early bilingual experience in RSFC was not observed, suggesting that adaptations might only emerge during explicit linguistic tasks, or at a later point in development.

An Analysis into the Contribution of Google Applications in the Successful Implementation of Online Education During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Purpose: The emergence of COVID-19 led the world to an unprecedented public health crisis. The outbreak and cause of COVID-19 have placed a wide range of social, political, and economic impacts. The negative impact placed on education is addressed using online education. This paper aims to find success in online education using google applications on regular days and pandemic periods to support the lifelong continuous learning experience. The focus of this study is to review students’ satisfaction with the web applications which are mandatory for online education. Methodology: The non-probability sampling technique is used to collect data for analysis. The new set of hypotheses are identified by using this sampling technique. The exploratory research method is followed to find better results on this topic. Survey questionnaires were prepared and delivered to higher education students of various colleges of various universities in and around our Dakshina Kannada district. The survey including questions on the mode of online education, their level of satisfaction, technologies used, internet facility, internet applications used for the online class. More than 1000 responses were received by the students who are experiencing online education and its platform. Findings/Result: The study aims to decide the regularity of use of the various features of Google applications. Students’ opinions toward online learning based on their involvements have been observed. The elements, modes, and tools which designed those students’ online education practices have also been considered. The analysis was conducted to identify a variety of applications available for online classroom education with their features that made them so important. Originality: The features of several internet applications were considered to find popularity in the online mode of education. This analysis may helpful for teachers, students, and administrators even after the pandemic period to conduct additional online courses in a parallel fashion along with traditional classrooms to improve the lifelong learning experience. Paper Type: Survey paper.

‘I Think It Will Be Like This Forever’: How Family Narratives Affect Participation in a Childhood Weight Management Intervention

The family represents the cause of as well as the solution to childhood overweight in many family-based childhood weight management interventions. Involving the family also entails involving the individual family members’ experiences with, attitudes towards, and understandings of obesity. This study explores how families with life-long experiences of overweight manage and experience a family-based childhood weight management intervention in Northern Zealand in Denmark. The analysis is focused on family narratives and their temporal character. The families’ narratives about overweight and past weight management interventions are crucial to how they understand and manage the present intervention. Additionally, the families expect the focus on weight management to continue to be a constant part of their everyday life. The paper concludes that the understanding of weight management in interventions should take its point of departure in the life-world, which the individual family creates through members’ narratives about overweight.

Promoting Engineering Education Through Visible Learning and Formative Assessment Strategies

The assessment and teaching strategies are chief indicators of comprehended learning in the field of education. They are the critical moves in the learning process, specifically when related to engineering and science. The mediocre content delivery and inferior assessment affect several educational spheres, such as faculty development, student scores, placement, and life-long experience. These two factors considerably regulate the programspecific outcomes (PSOs) and course outcomes (COs). The present work focuses on analyzing the effects of learning and assessment methods to achieve the designated PSOs and COs through visible learning. The analysis has been carried out with Hattie's effect size that influences the program and course achievement. The process was monitored for two subjects offered to the limited population of undergraduate students of Electrical Engineering. The statistics have been derived in the effect size affected by the source of influence, aspect, and factor. Further, the possibilities of incorporating formative evaluation and visible learning in Indian engineering education is framed in the discussion.

Experience with coupled spaces: From theory to practice

It has been more than a couple of decades since the interest in coupled volume systems started to grow rapidly among researchers. Basically, due to their increasingly popular applications in music halls for providing a rich acoustical environment either to fulfill the competing criteria of clarity and reverberance or simply to tune the auditoriums for multi-functional use. A lifelong experience with coupled spaces is the main motivation behind this paper. The journey starts with further developing the theoretical knowledge through scale model experiments. The results of which are utilized to observe the effects of the aperture size and shape on non-exponential sound energy decay by applying Bayesian analysis. The investigations have continued by field tests of real-size architectural monuments, specifically, worship spaces with multi-volume and domed typology. The relation of non-exponential energy decay and architectural parameters, for different scenarios or original uses of historical buildings, are searched through energy flow decays by applying the diffusion equation model. Simultaneously, all of these findings from academic research have been a source to produce acoustical design solutions for either small sized recording studios or large-scale multi-purpose auditoria in landmark buildings, all of which are briefly exemplified within this study.

Utilizing Virtual Exchange to Sustain Global Health Partnerships in Medical Education.

Integrating global health (GH) training in medical education has become prevalent in the United States over the last two decades. Many medical school graduates participate in some type of international learning experience during their undergraduate/graduate training, with plans to make this a part of their life-long learning experiences. Recognizing this trend, many pediatric national organizations, such as the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Association of Pediatric Program Directors, and the American Board of Pediatrics, have developed initiatives integrating GH education into existing curricula. We report our experience with using virtual learning on a cloud-based platform to remain connected with our GH training partners, and utilize this opportunity to further strengthen our existing relationships during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Overall, our experience thus far shows that this is an effective way to maintain communication even when international travel is not possible. It allows for the ongoing exchange of ideas and the development of long-term sustainable relationships. There are many important lessons our trainees can learn from such partnerships.

Exploring the moral foundations of crisis management

Crises are complex, multi-faceted, and ill-defined systems of highly interconnected problems. Profound ethical issues are among their prime components. Therefore, any attempt to manage them is unprofessional at best if it does not include ethical and moral standards. The link between ethics and crisis management, however, is seriously underdeveloped. We explore a pluralistic framework, Moral Foundations Theory (MFT), to take a step toward developing this important link.According to MFT, nature imbues us with “moral intuitions” which are continually shaped by our lifelong experiences. In particular, MFT has two sets of Foundations. We argue that MFT's Individualizing Moral Foundations emphasize the necessity of treating stakeholders fairly and protecting them from potential and actual harm; whereas its Binding Foundations emphasize the necessity of expanding the organization's moral compass to include a broad set of stakeholders, establishing trust and coalitions with them, and creating a culture within which expertise and diverse opinions are respected, and open-mindedness and critical thinking are highly valued. We discuss how organizations can manage moral intuitions to create an environment in which fast, automatic, habitual yet moral and rational judgments consistent with the moral standards of an organization and society at large, can flourish.

한 중년 남성의 생애에 나타난 평생학습 경험 내러티브 탐구: 사이버대학에서 전공한 한국어교육을 중심으로

한 중년 남성의 생애에 나타난 평생학습 경험 내러티브 탐구: 사이버대학에서 전공한 한국어교육을 중심으로

Adverse childhood experiences and depression among women in rural Pakistan

BackgroundAdverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are a common pathway to adult depression. This pathway is particularly important during the perinatal period when women are at an elevated risk for depression. However, this relationship has not been explored in South Asia. This study estimates the association between ACEs and women’s (N = 889) depression at 36 months postpartum in rural Pakistan.MethodData come from the Bachpan Cohort study. To capture ACEs, an adapted version of the ACE-International Questionnaire was used. Women’s depression was measured using both major depressive episodes (MDE) and depressive symptom severity. To assess the relationship between ACEs and depression, log-Poisson models were used for MDE and linear regression models for symptom severity.ResultsThe majority (58%) of women experienced at least one ACE domain, most commonly home violence (38.3%), followed by neglect (20.1%). Women experiencing four or more ACEs had the most pronounced elevation of symptom severity (β = 3.90; 95% CL = 2.13, 5.67) and MDE (PR = 2.43; 95% CL = 1.37, 4.32). Symptom severity (β = 2.88; 95% CL = 1.46, 4.31), and MDE (PR = 2.01; 95% CL = 1.27, 3.18) were greater for those experiencing community violence or family distress (β = 2.04; 95%; CL = 0.83, 3.25) (PR = 1.77; 95% CL = 1.12, 2.79).ConclusionsFindings suggest that ACEs are substantively distinct and have unique relationships to depression. They signal a need to address women’s ACEs as part of perinatal mental health interventions and highlight women’s lifelong experiences as important factors to understanding current mental health.Trial registrationNCT02111915. Registered 11 April 2014. NCT02658994. Registered 22 January 2016. Both trials were prospectively registered.