Majority Of Undergraduate Students Research Articles

Research on Entrepreneurship Education Model of Science and Engineering College Students in Beijing Municipal Universities

Using Beijing University of Civil Engineering and Architecture as an example and combined with the basic situation of Beijing Municipal University, this article explores the mode of entrepreneurship education for undergraduate students major in science and engineering in Beijing municipal colleges and universities. The research helps to enhance the entrepreneurship awareness among undergraduates in Beijing, improve their entrepreneurial ability, and cultivate their entrepreneurship ability. It contributes to the further improvement of the science and engineering major undergraduate students’ entrepreneurship training system Beijing municipal colleges and universities and the mode of entrepreneurship education. It is also of important and practical significance to explore the countermeasures of entrepreneurship education.

What type of learner are your students? Preferred learning styles of undergraduate gross anatomy students according to the index of learning styles questionnaire.

Students learn and process information in many different ways. Learning styles are useful as they allow instructors to learn more about students, as well as aid in the development and application of useful teaching approaches and techniques. At the undergraduate level there is a noticeable lack of research on learning style preferences of students enrolled in gross anatomy courses. The Index of Learning Styles (ILS) questionnaire was administered to students enrolled in a large enrollment undergraduate gross anatomy course with laboratory to determine their preferred learning styles. The predominant preferred learning styles of the students (n = 505) enrolled in the gross anatomy course were active (54.9%), sensing (85.1%), visual (81.2%), and sequential (74.4%). Preferred learning styles profiles of particular majors enrolled in the course were also constructed; analyses showed minor variation in the active/reflective dimension. An understanding of students' preferred learning styles can guide course design but it should not be implemented in isolation. It can be strengthened (or weakened) by concurrent use of other tools (e.g., flipped classroom course design). Based on the preferred learning styles of the majority of undergraduate students in this particular gross anatomy course, course activities can be hands on (i.e., active), grounded in concrete information (i.e., sensing), utilize visual representation such as images, figures, models, etc. (i.e., visual), and move in small incremental steps that build on each topic (i.e., sequential). Anat Sci Educ 11: 358-365. © 2017 American Association of Anatomists.

大学専門課程化学実験の実施例( 化学教育の進め方 IV : 経験談)

大学専門課程化学実験の実施例( 化学教育の進め方 IV : 経験談)

English

Lecturing remains a popular and predominant teaching pedagogy in Higher Education Institutions and Tanzanian universities are no exception. However, due to increase in enrollments, lecturing encounters serious challenges as burgeoning diverse nature of students’ learning needs associated with physiological, psychological, professional and biographic factors. This study employed cross-sectional survey to investigate on undergraduate students’ learning styles and extent lecture pedagogy complements students’ learning needs in inclusive classes during lecture sessions. The study involved 206 undergraduate students to whom semi-structured questionnaires were administered. The quantitative data were analyzed by SPSS, while qualitative data were subjected to content analysis. The results show majority of undergraduate students were accommodators, preferring more to experiment with their concrete experiences. Furthermore, results show that there is significant difference across their academic year, subject major, working experience and students’ exceptionality. The study concludes that lecturing is but a part of teaching pedagogy which has to be flexible to suit the prevailing contexts of inclusive teaching and learning to entail students’ differences including academic year, subject major, work experience and exceptionality characteristics of students in lecture halls. The study recommends more studies on lecturing and learning styles to augment theory and practice of inclusive teaching in universities. Key words: Experiential learning, inclusive class, Kolb’s theory, learning style, lecture.

The Factors Affecting Moral Competency of Iranian Undergraduate Students Majoring in English Language and Literature: Investigating the Role of Applied ELT in Iranian Collectivist Culture

In a broad dichotomy, cultures are divided into collectivists and individualists. This difference between cultures is manifested in educational settings and the way students and teachers approach educational tasks and activities (Hofstede, 1986). This study investigated the way the dominant culture can affect the cognitive and affective load of classrooms and eventually account for the development of students’ moral judgment. To this end, 400 Iranian university students majoring in English language and literature were asked to complete FAMC test (Javadimehr et al., 2015a). This test measures the role of four factors of “focus, sharing, challenge and support” in the development of moral competency. The results revealed that there was a growth in the pattern of affective and cognitive factors from the first to the last year of studying in this major. The results also indicated that “challenge” was the least attended cognitive factor but “support” was always the most prevalent factor in all academic years. The findings are then discussed by taking into account the findings of other related studies conducted in individualist and collectivist societies.

Opinions of GM Foods and Food Grown with Pesticides in Health and Non‐health Major Undergraduate Students

BackgroundOur previous study showed that nutritional science students progressively ate healthier throughout their four undergraduate years. The purpose of this study was to examine the opinions of genetically modified (GM) foods and food grown with pesticides in health majors and non‐health majors before taking an introductory nutrition class (NSC 170). We hypothesized that students in health majors have concerns about GM foods and foods grown with pesticides.MethodsUndergraduate health majors (n=213), non‐health majors (n=121), and undeclared/undecided students (neither health or non‐health major, n=29), aged 18.6 ± 1.3 years, 60.4% white, 18.7% black, 13.8% Hispanic, and 7.1% Asians, completed surveys in the beginning of the semester. The survey had 18 questions regarding their demographic information, daily dietary intakes, consumption of pre‐prepared food (including fast food), perception of own health, consumption of organic foods, and concerns with GM foods and foods grown with the use of pesticides. The data was analyzed with descriptive statistics and multiple linear regression.Results77% of students (n=281) in the study reported they do not have any special dietary restrictions and 84.6% of students (n=308) felt their diet was somewhat healthy. The median vegetable and fruits consumptions were both two servings per day. Students in both health and non‐health majors were moderately concerned with GM foods (n=168, 46.2%) and foods grown with the use of pesticides (n=190, 52.2%). It was also found that older students were more concerned with GM foods and pesticides (p<0.05). After adjusting for age, although not significantly, males were more concerned with GM foods and pesticides than females. There were no significant associations between major types and concerns with GM foods and pesticides. However, undecided majors were less concerned about GM foods and pesticides. (p<0.05) When asked how often they bought organic produce, 37.9% of students (n=139) answered they bought organic produce a few times a month, 22% of students (n=80) bought most of the time, and 14.6% of students (n=53) bought only a few times a year. There was a significant correlation between purchase of organic foods and concerns with GM foods and pesticides (p<0.0001).ConclusionsIn regards to concerns with GM foods and pesticides, half of the students surveyed were moderately concerned. There was no significant association between health majors and non‐health majors. It was interesting to find that male, older students were more concerned about GM foods and pesticides. Also, there was a significant correlation between concern with GM foods and pesticides and purchase of organic foods. In the future study, we will examine the changes of concerns of GM foods and food grown with pesticides upon completion of the introductory nutrition class (NSC 170) with the same group of students.Support or Funding InformationUniversity of Arizona, Honors College

Cardiovascular System Explained on the Bases of Sports, Taught by Undergraduate Students Majoring in Biomedical Sciences or Biology

This year, Texas A & M University‐Kingsville (TAMUK) hosted, for the first time, a Physiology Understanding Week (PhUn week). This was the first time this initiative is held anywhere south of San Antonio, Texas. We had participants from two local middle schools. Undergraduate students from TAMUK engaged in presentations that taught middle school students how the circulatory system functions and showed its importance. We involved the children in physical activities, and provided hands on demonstrations to represent functions of the heart, like heart rate. We presented our information to over five groups of children, each group containing at least twenty kids. After the presentations were over, the children had a growing curiosity over human anatomy and physiology beyond the cardiovascular system. They asked questions related to all organ systems and different conditions that affect the human body. With this activity, we were able to introduce children of different grade levels to human physiology. By doing this, we peaked their interest at a young age, and encouraged them to look into a future career in the medical/health field.

Comments & Queries

Comments & Queries Andrew Muldoon Comments & Queries are welcome via email. Our address is ,victstu@indiana.edu. On The Cover is "Spiritualism Made Useful" from Punch (1 Jan. 1877). Courtesy of the George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections & Archives, Bowdoin College Library, Brunswick, Maine. Changes at VS: This winter, we have had the privilege of working with two excellent undergraduate interns. Madeline Klein is a second-year undergraduate student majoring in English and Comparative Literature. She is grateful for her experiences at Victorian Studies, as they have helped her refine the interests she wishes to pursue in graduate school. She would especially like to thank the graduate staff for an office with too many copies of books and just enough laughs about pop culture and politics. No matter where she ends up, she will be sure to keep in touch with the women who gave her such a great semester at VS. Luke Uhl is an undergraduate pursuing a B. A. in English, a B. S. in Biology, and a minor in Chemistry. He anticipates graduating in the spring of 2019. He would like to thank Victorian Studies for the opportunity to work with an esteemed academic journal. He has enjoyed learning about the publication process through this experience. After graduation, he plans to attend dental school. As always, Victorian Studies thanks the Indiana University Honors College, without whose generous support our internship program would not be possible. Announcement: The Judith R. Walkowitz Article Prize A leading scholar of British social and cultural history, particularly in relation to issues of gender and sexuality, Professor Judith R. Walkowitz has played a significant role in shaping the field of British Studies and the community of scholars who participate in the endeavor. To honor her contribution, the NACBS is raising money for an article prize in her name. The Judith R. Walkowitz Article Prize will be awarded annually for the best published article on issues relating to gender and sexuality in British culture. The prize will be open to scholars resident in North America working in any time period and any discipline within British Studies. Along with numerous articles and essays, Judith R. Walkowitz has published three field-transforming monographs: Prostitution and Victorian Society: Women, Class and the State (Cambridge University Press, 1980); City of Dreadful Delight: Narratives of Sexual Danger in Late-Victorian London (University of Chicago Press, 1992); and Nights Out: Life in Cosmopolitan London (Yale 2012). With Judith Newton and Mary Ryan, she also co-edited Sex and Class in Women's History: Essays from Feminist Studies (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1983). Her work has been supported by numerous fellowships, among them, the ACLS, the NEH, and the Guggenheim. [End Page 374] An institutional pioneer and a groundbreaking historian of rare quality, Judith R. Walkowitz has also been an unusually committed mentor of students and colleagues working in British history and related fields. She has trained sizeable cohorts of graduate students at Rutgers University and at The Johns Hopkins University and has inspired numerous undergraduates. Additionally, she has been a generous colleague and critic in her continued advocacy of peers and students, whether at her own institution or elsewhere. A dedicated reader and editor, she invites practitioners of history at all levels to refine their interventions, enrich their narratives, and elevate their work. Please consider supporting this effort on the part of the NACBS to recognize Judith R. Walkowitz and her contributions to the scholarship and communities of British Studies. Donations towards the article prize can be sent as a cheque made out to "North American Conference on British Studies." Please indicate on the cheque itself that your donation is towards the Walkowitz Prize and mail to: [End Page 375] Andrew Muldoon Department of History Metropolitan State University of Denver P.O. Box 173362 Campus Box 27 Denver CO 80217-3362 USA Copyright © 2017 The Trustees of Indiana University

Non-Science Major Undergraduate Students’ High School Science Experiences: An Exploratory Case Study

Previous studies reported relatively low correlation coefficients between students’ high school science experiences and their science identities. This needs more exploratory studies to investigate the reasons for these low correlation coefficients. This article presents the high school science experiences of three non-science major undergraduate students and the influence from their experiences, in their perspective, on their choice of a non-science major in college. Three female Hispanic non-science major undergraduate students were interviewed about their high school science experiences. Data were analyzed to answer the research question: From three female Hispanic students’ perspectives, what are some factors from high school science experiences that influenced students’ choice of non-science majors in college studies, particularly some specific factors related to their Hispanic cultural backgrounds and gender role. The most mentioned influential factor among three participants was didactic teaching styles of their high school science teachers. Another important finding was low performance/self-efficacy in math may predict students’ low interest/persistence in science but high performance/self-efficacy in math does not necessarily predict students’ high interest/persistence in science.

Perceived quality of private education and fears of stratification: Investigating the propositions of human capital theory by exploring the case of Colombia

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the recent developments in the higher education system of Colombia in order to illustrate how these encourage stratification between (types of) universities and their students. We do so by discussing propositions generated by human capital theory and apply them to the experiences of students and graduates from Colombian universities.We conducted a survey ( n = 700) amongst graduate and undergraduate students at 12 low-fee private universities. Four interviews with (former) students served as an illustration. The majority of undergraduate students perceived the quality of their education as poor and wanted to attend another university. Both students and graduates expressed uncertainty about finding a job and anticipated difficulties as they felt they lacked essential skills. Due to relatively unhindered privatization and marketization of the columbian higher education sector, low-quality private provision in Colombia demonstrates this structural inequality.Our study shows that investing in higher education does not always correlate positively with skills gained or future income, thereby revealing the necessity to use human capital theory in a more nuanced manner.

Unearthed! The Amazing Microbiome Exposed: The Established Researcher

Most of us can identify a group of people that have influenced the direction of our careers and of our research programs. For me, a few individuals were pivotal at different stages of my research career. As an undergraduate student majoring in biology at Concordia University, my goal was to enter a medical profession rather than a career in ecology. That all changed in my final year when I was introduced to soil microbial ecology by Paul Widden. I was dazzled by the diversity of organisms that could be viewed under the microscope. I found it very interesting that we could observe only a small proportion of the organisms in the soil, for many of which we have no idea what they do. I was hooked. This was the beginning of my interest in research. With a thirst for better understanding the microbial world, I then joined Bryce Kendrick's laboratory as a graduate student to study mycology. My research focused on the ecology of mycorrhizal symbioses, but it was also a great environment for a broad training in mycology and an appreciation of the important roles of fungi as saprobes, pathogens, and mutualists. As a postdoc in Mike Allen's group in San Diego, I focused on the use and management of mycorrhizal fungi in landscape restoration and their responses to climate change. John Klironomos. Photo taken by Miranda Hart. My research up to this point was exciting, but there was one aspect to the work that I worried about: Most of the research was built on experiments with plants grown in mycorrhizal treatments and nonmycorrhizal (sterile) controls. Such an approach is powerful in evaluating the contributions of mycorrhizal fungi. However, it is also of limited relevance as the nonmycorrhizal state is not typically found for most plants in nature. Nonetheless, this was (and still is) a standard method for studying mycorrhizal symbioses by many research groups. In 1997, a big change happened in my approach to studying plant–microbe interactions. While attending the Mycological Society of America meeting in Montreal, I listened to Jim Bever talk about a simple but powerful framework on plant–soil feedback. He showed how his concept could be used to study plant and microbial effects and responses at the same time. The approach was particularly attractive because it integrated soil microbes into dynamical frameworks of plant populations, which was novel at that time. The associated methodology was simple experimentation and had no requirement for nonmycorrhizal controls. Jim and his colleagues published their discoveries in a seminal paper (Bever, J. D., K. M. Westover, and J. Antonovics. 1997. Incorporating the soil community into plant population dynamics: the utility of the feedback approach. Journal of Ecology 85:561–573). Over the following decade, the framework by Jim and his colleagues led to an explosion of research studies on topics such as population and community dynamics, multitrophic interactions, determinants of rarity and invasiveness, climate change impacts, conservation biology, and landscape reclamation, among others. In reflecting on the contribution by Jim and his colleagues and the resulting impact on my research and the entire field, I believe there lies an important lesson. Many argue that advances in soil ecology are limited by available techniques. I certainly believe this; for example, our ability to better understand the identity and functioning of soil microbes has been vastly improved with recent advances in genomic techniques. However, conceptual/theoretical contributions may be just as influential, if not more so. Jim and his colleagues were able to stretch the field of soil ecology in a way that has resulted in more powerful questions, which are leading to research studies designed to provide more profound insight.

Describing and interpreting graphs: The relationships between undergraduate writer characteristics and academic graph writing performance

Abstract Although graph-based writing is common in tests of academic English due to its correspondence with the real-world academic writing, a concern, however, has been raised regarding the role of graphic prompts in writing and the proper interpretation of performances on such tests. This study investigates the relationships between writer characteristics (graph familiarity, English writing ability, and content knowledge) and performance on a graph-writing test with two tasks: GD task and GI task. The participants were 234 English as a foreign language (EFL) health science and medical major undergraduate students. Quantitative data from multiple sources were collected, including the graph familiarity questionnaire, the content knowledge test, the English writing test, and the graph-writing test. The findings from structural equation modeling analyses showed that these graph tasks elicit writers’ content knowledge and academic writing ability. Overall, graph familiarity had no significant impact on writers’ performance on either of the graph task, while content knowledge and writing ability had significant and positive effects on test performance. Content knowledge thus introduced a potential source of construct-irrelevant variance. The study has implications for the development and use of graph-based writing as a measure of academic writing.

Writing Problems of Non-English Major Undergraduate Students in Bangladesh: An Observation

Writing is considered a productive skill and useful tool for learning process. It is the most used skill in evaluating students’ performance in almost all levels of education. In Bangladesh, tertiary level students still face enormous writing problems in English. The present study aims to explore writing problems of non-English major undergraduate students at a private university in Bangladesh. The study was conducted on 89 non-English major undergraduate students from different departments studying at Stamford University Bangladesh. The data were taken through document collection and questionnaire. Moreover, a semi-structured interview on twelve teachers has been conducted to reflect their attitudes and opinion on students’ English writing problems. In addition, a few recommendations are provided on the basis of the result. This study could help the teachers to resolve the problems and find some strategies to improve students’ writing in English.

성찰일지를 통한 상담전문가 발달 경험: 융합적 교육방법의 상담실습 중심으로

The purpose of this study is to explore undergraduate students' professional growth experiences as a novice counselor through reflective journal writing. Study participants were six students who completed the counseling skills course. The analysis was done on their weekly reflective journals using Colaizzi's phenomenological qualitative method. As a result, 11 sub-categories and 3 categories were emerged: increasing recognition and knowledge regarding counseling, being troubled and frustrated due to one's inexperiences of counseling, trying to overcome frustration toward professional counselors. This study revealed counseling major undergraduate students' professional development experiences and can be utilized in counseling training program development in the future.

Rhoticity in Yunnan English

ABSTRACTThis paper presents a study of the pronunciation of English by speakers from Yunnan Province in Southwest China. Eight non‐English major undergraduate students participated in three tasks: an informal interview, reading a text, and a dialectological‐style questionnaire. The degree of rhoticity was assessed based on auditory analysis, with an inter‐rater agreement of 97 per cent. The results revealed significant inter‐speaker variation: two informants were virtually non‐rhotic whereas the remaining six were rhotic to a considerable degree. Intra‐speaker variation among these six was furthermore systematic: the degree of rhoticity was lowest in the interview, intermediate in reading, and highest in the questionnaire. These results are discussed with reference to several factors, including the level of formality and attention to speech triggered by the tasks, potentially emerging norms for rhoticity, and the stage of development of a local form of ‘Yunnan English’.

Presidential Address: My Time with the Parasites.

Presidential Address: My Time with the Parasites.

Practice Makes Perfect

Background. A majority of undergraduate students lack opportunities to engage in research. Often, students must seek research opportunities with faculty members, and these opportunities are generally difficult to acquire. These research experiences increase student satisfaction and success in graduate school. Objectives. Undergraduate public health and health promotion faculty can integrate research skill building into traditional courses through didactic instruction, course assignments, and group discussion. Teaching method. This teaching method includes four key components: (1) didactic instruction, (2) skill development, (3) data collection and analysis, and (4) class discussion. First, students learn the importance of research and free listing as a qualitative research method. Second, the class participates in a free listing exercise to learn how to collect, format, analyze, and synthesize free listing data. Third, students apply skills learned in the class session by collecting data, formatting data for analysis, analyzing data, and preparing a results section describing their findings. Fourth, the instructor aggregates the data to facilitate a class discussion. By completing these assignments, students learn about the research process and enhance their skills in qualitative research methods. Results/outcomes. This activity supports the development of research skills in public health and health promotion courses. This method can be suited for courses of any size or format (lecture-based, online, or blended format). Faculty can be confident that students can understand and apply research methods, as well as analyze data, thus supporting students’ transitions into the workforce or graduate education programs.

The Effects of Using Storytelling with a Charlie Chaplin Silent Movie Clip on Oral Proficiency Development

This eleven-week study investigated the effects of storytelling using silent movie clips compared to a series of images to improve the oral proficiency of Korean university students who have a low-intermediate level of English proficiency. The subjects of this study were 36 non-English major Korean undergraduate students whose first language is Korean. Participants were divided into two groups: the experimental group used silent movie clips and the control group used a series of images to compare improvements in their oral performance based on two different visual effects. In order to explore whether storytelling with silent movie clips can produce a positive learning effect, this research employed both qualitative and quantitative approaches. The spoken data were analyzed both holistically and analytically, and results revealed that using the storytelling task can develop both groups` oral proficiency. In particular, the experimental group showed significant improvement in discourse, vocabulary, grammar, and sentence complexity. The participants` attitudes toward using movie clips were slightly positive for discourse, vocabulary, and grammar. Moreover, this study discusses how digital storytelling about a silent movie clip can be used as a plausible speaking assessment task for Korean university students learning English.

Communicating the relevance of the library in the age of Google: Improving undergraduate research skills and information literacy though new models of library instruction

Most academic librarians have long been aware that the ascent of the Internet has posed a challenge to the primacy of the library as information hub. Recent studies have shown that the majority of undergraduate students do not begin their research in the library, but with Google and Wikipedia - and many students end their research here as well (Connaway, Dickey, & Radford, 2011). This trend would seem to bode ill for the quality of the research skills and the level of information literacy among current undergraduates, as many students privilege convenient access to information over quality of content (Colón-Aguirre & Fleming-May, 2012; Connaway, et al., 2011). But how do we prepare undergraduate students for the rigours of academic research given this circumstance? The library instruction session has been the path to information literacy traditionally taken by colleges and universities, but increasingly, librarians have begun questioning the value of these sessions. Many undergraduates do not find library instruction sessions relevant to their practical information needs and to changing modes of information access, and many students do not come away from library information sessions feeling fully prepared - or even fully willing - to move beyond Google and into the library in order to carry out quality information searches (Colón-Aguirre & Fleming-May, 2012). Indeed, many librarians also now feel that the classic model of library instruction no longer fully meets the information needs of undergraduates nor anticipates their Internet-focused research habits, and that library instruction needs to change dramatically in order to do so (Colón-Aguirre & Fleming-May, 2012; Farkas, 2012). Such means of improving library instruction include: breaking away from the single-session model and moving toward a multiple-session model (Farkas, 2012); incorporating discussion of Internet-based and electronic resources more fully into instruction sessions (Colón-Aguirre & Fleming-May, 2012); tailoring library instruction to course curricula and assignments (Smith, et al., 2012); and incorporating active, student-centred learning into library instruction sessions (Abate, Gomes, & Linton, 2011). The successful implementation of these measures is ultimately dependent upon communication and collaboration among library staff, faculty, and students. Implementing major changes to library instruction can be challenging for all stakeholders; such challenges will be explored in a discussion of the implementation of a prototype library instruction model developed at Selkirk College, a small undergraduate-focused institution in British Columbia, Canada.

Case Study of Teaching Portfolio of UXD Basic for Undergraduate Students Majoring in Design

Case Study of Teaching Portfolio of UXD Basic for Undergraduate Students Majoring in Design