Pre-university Experiences Research Articles

Student Pre-University Experiences Toward Commitment to Agriculture

University agricultural programs’ struggle to attract students is leading to a disparity in the number of available jobs in agriculture and the number of qualified applicants to fill these positions. This study sought to garner a unique students’ perspective of ways that universities and specifically agricultural programs can support and encourage them to commit to agricultural degree programs by understanding potential pre-university experiences that influence their decision to commit to agriculture long-term. We reported our findings based on 22 responses from students of two different US universities who filled out the open-ended questionnaire. From the responses, we found that before entering university, students’ farming-related activities and participation in school-based agriculture-related and research programs impacted their future commitment to agricultural degree programs. Moreover, scholarships, practical experience opportunities, and course-related actions at the university level also impacted students’ commitment to agricultural degree programs. We recommend continued research into students’ commitment to a career in agriculture. Additionally, expansion of primary and secondary school agricultural education programs and K-12 students’ participation in 4-H and FFA programs may increase their exposure to agricultural experiences. Providing greater financial assistance and university support to students in agriculture programs may also positively impact students’ commitment to agriculture long-term.

Professional Identity of 0.24 Million Medical Students in China Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Three Waves of National Cross-Sectional Studies.

BackgroundProfessional identity (PI) influences the doctor's thoughts and behaviors. Thus, PI formation (PIF) plays an important role in medical students' education. Major changes to the learning environment could impact PIF, but the influence of the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on medical students' PI had confusing conclusions in previous studies. We aimed to compare PI of medical students by using the data from three waves of national cross-sectional surveys conducted in China in 2019, 2020, and 2021, and to examine factors that influence PIF.MethodWe used data from the China Medical Student Survey (CMSS) which has conducted three national cross-sectional surveys. From 2019 to 2021, CMCC retrieved data on PI from a nationally representative sample of medical students from 33, 121, and 123 colleges, respectively. We analyzed the data using Chi-square test, analysis of variance, and multivariable logistic regression according to sociodemographic characteristics, pre-university experience, college characteristics, and college experience.ResultsA total of 244,040 medical students in China participated in the surveys. The overall score of PI increased from 3.80 in 2019 to 3.85 in 2021. Medical students with family medical background, high intrinsic and extrinsic motivation of major selection, teachers' positive role model, and high personal comprehensive quality ranking were more likely to have higher PI (all p < 0.05). The more attention students paid to the COVID-19 pandemic, the higher PI they would have (aOR 1.93, 95% CI 1.67–2.24 for more attention; aOR 2.31, 95% CI 2.00–2.68 for the most attention). However, parents' participation on the front lines of COVID-19 pandemic negatively influenced the PI of medical students (aOR 0.72, 95% CI 0.57–0.93).ConclusionsPI of medical students increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. The impact of the pandemic on PI was complex. To improve the PI of medical students, the education sector, health sector and the society need to make concerted efforts.

Empirical study of learning success among first-year students in health education

Introduction: Comprehensive predictors of first-year students' academic performance, including pre-university experience, can be found at both individual and infrastructural levels that can be measured and used to increase academic performance and contribute to student mental health. Aim: To study the characteristics of students who are beginning their studies in medical, dental, pharmacy and health care organization. Method: Analysis of a database obtained through questionnaire data among first-year Semmelweis University students (n = 550). Significant explanatory variables influencing student performance were determined by logistic regression. Results: Different faculties and prestige channels have different success factors and student needs, the fulfillment of which also serves the maintenance of student mental health. Two groups were defined: (i) factors independent of age (perseverance value, religious belief, WHO value of well-being, importance of sport, trust), (ii) faculty-specific factors (Faculties of Medicine and Dentistry: parental influence on learning; Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences: the importance of relationships is high; Faculty of Health Sciences: parental qualifications are decisive). Conclusion: At the start of a student's life, measurements can uncover factors that, if learned, can facilitate later successful studies, preventing early school leaving. During the course of studies, these features can be monitored continuously, so that the necessary interventions can be made to ensure student success. Orv Hetil. 2020; 161(4): 139-150.

Refugee-Background Students’ Experience with College English Requirements: The Case of North Korean Students in South Korea

ABSTRACTThere has been an influx of school-aged North Korean refugees defecting to South Korea in recent years. Research examining their integration into South Korean schools has shown that these students consider English to be one of the biggest obstacles to their academic endeavors. However, not much attention has been paid to examining the difficulties that they face in English classes and how one might help them. The current study examines North Korean refugees’ experience with English at a private university in South Korea, focusing on their prior educational experiences and their struggle with mandatory English courses. It further reports on how the foundational English courses implemented for these students have fared to date. Data were collected via surveys and interviews with refugee-background students and their instructors. The results are discussed in light of the students’ pre-university experiences, with reference to Bourdieu’s theoretical framework of capital resources and habitus.

An Analysis on the Effects of Career Experiential Career Program on Adolescent Students’ Career Maturity : Utilizing Propensity Score Matching and Quantile Regression

The purpose of this study was to empirically investigate effects of an experiential career program on the development of middle school students’ c areer m aturity. For this p urpose, we explored the 6th year dataset of the Seoul Education Longitudinal Study (SELS) using OLS, PSM, and Quantile Regression. Our results show that participation in an experiential career program, as well as each type of experiential career program affect the career maturity of middle school statistically. Moreover, the size of impact on students career maturity of each experiential career program type was found to differ from each other. The on-site professional activity is more effective for with low levels of career maturity than with high levels of career maturity. However, professional lectures, pre-university experiences and career experience camps are more effective for with high levels of career maturity than with low levels of career maturity. According to the results, we suggest that students career maturity should be considered before providing experiential career programs to students. Moreover, further analysis of the effects of various career activity program sizes on levels of career maturity could reduce the amount of excessive activities. It is also possible to propose in which grade experiential career programs should be carried out according to career maturity level.

Building on Tinto’s model of engagement and persistence: Experiences from the Umthombo Youth Development Foundation Scholarship Scheme

Background. Major inequalities in staffing levels at rural and urban hospitals contribute to poorer health outcomes in rural areas. Local and international studies have shown that healthcare professionals (HCPs) of rural origin are more likely than those of urban origin to work in and contribute to improved health outcomes in rural areas. However, absent role models, dysfunctional families, schools that perform poorly and inadequate funding make it almost impossible for rural-origin students to gain access to institutions of higher learning (IHLs) to train as HCPs. Objective. To present the experiences of graduates from the Umthombo Youth Development Foundation Scholarship Scheme, build on Tinto’s model of persistence and engagement, and contribute towards the success rates of rural-origin HCPs. Methods. This qualitative study used a life-history methodology. Unstructured interviews, photomemory, artefacts and collage development were used to explore the educational experiences of six rural-origin HCPs. Data were coded and categorised and themes identified. Results. Compulsory academic and peer mentoring promoted academic and social engagement, helped students to recognise their pre-university experiences as generative, and contributed to their success. The generative potential of pre-university experiences and compulsory work-based experiential learning were identified as initiatives that could strengthen Tinto’s model of persistence and engagement. Conclusion. A number of targeted interventions, if introduced at South African IHLs, could contribute to improved success rates of rural-origin health science students.

University diversity and preparation for a global society: the role of diversity in shaping intergroup attitudes and civic outcomes

Although there is growing research showing that students' views, attitudes, and university diversity experiences promote preparation for a global society, little research is available outside of American contexts. This study utilised data collected at one Australian university to examine whether students' views and attitudes towards diversity, and their university diversity experiences, stimulate the development of key attributes needed to function effectively in a global society, namely positive intergroup attitudes and civic engagement. The findings demonstrate that high-quality engagement with curricular diversity activities (institutionally structured opportunities for students to engage with diversity) and with diverse peers (positive diversity interactions) are associated with improved intergroup attitudes and civic engagement outcomes. The findings also reveal that poor quality engagement with diverse peers (negative diversity interactions) are negatively associated with gains in these outcomes. These findings are consistent regardless of students' pre-university experience with diversity and their openness to diversity.

Nursing students’ use of technology enhanced learning: A longitudinal study

Background: Nurses are expected to be information and communication technology (ICT) literate at registration but, despite the growth of social uses of technology, little is known of the views of students on the use of technology enhanced learning. The purpose of this study was to explore the experience and confidence of first year pre-registration nursing students with information and communication technologies and technology enhanced learning. Methods: A prospective longitudinal survey design with multiple data collection strategies was employed. Cross- sectional surveys using a new ICT and Education Scale at three time-points were used to collect data. The target population were first year UK nursing students (n=458); of those 287 (41.7%) participated in the initial baseline survey. Results: There were three main findings. First, more than half of the respondents (67%) reported that they were not confident with aspects of information literacy and were not prepared for technology enhanced learning (60%) as they entered university and these aspects showed least change through time. Second, from varied starting points at baseline, respondents’ experience and confidence with ICT skills showed different trajectories over time. Third, there was some evidence that demographic profile was related to use and acceptance of ICT in the educational context. Conclusions: There is some evidence that nursing students find it difficult to negotiate the boundaries between their pre-university experience with technologies and that of education and practice. In a rapidly changing technology environment this has implications for curriculum planning in the first six months of a programme of study as well as student/staff preparation for technology enhanced learning.

Learning from feedback? Mature students’ experiences of assessment in higher education

This paper draws on a longitudinal study of students who entered an ancient Scottish university directly from further education colleges (FECs) to discuss the role that different assessment regimes played in their university careers. It illuminates aspects of learning from feedback from the perspective of students whose pre-university experiences of assessment provided a major contrast to that of the majority of their peers. Overall it shows that students do learn from feedback and become able to self-assess and monitor their own learning and develop their own standards. It argues, however, that their experiences can be much more productive if there is more emphasis on feeding forward to meet changing expectations over time. This enables students to develop as independent learners and means that different strategies are appropriate at different stages of students’ university careers.

Pre-University Experience of ICT and Self-Access Learning in Japan

Information and Communications Technology (ICT) can play a key role in self-access learning and the organization of self-access centres (SACs) (Reinders &amp; Lázaro, 2007). The generation of young people currently at university has been labeled “digital natives” (Prensky, 2001), yet it would seem that many of these “natives” in Japan seem to lack the necessary ICT skills to use in the university context (Castellano, Mynard &amp; Rubesch, 2011; Williams, 2011). This paper assesses the current situation of Japanese young people’s pre-university ICT experience and its implications for self-access learning. Do they actually lack the necessary skills to engage with self-access in an ICT context? Or does the reality in fact show that this perception is wrong and if so why? This paper will answer the questions through original research (N=105) and reference to the literature, globally and in Japan. It finds that students have more competence than previously believed and ventures some reasons for this previous misperception.

Assessing the Influence of Gender, Learning Style, and Pre-entry Experience on Student Response to Delivery of a Novel Veterinary Curriculum

We investigated whether a novel veterinary curriculum was biased toward a particular gender, learning style, or pre-university experience (entry following undergraduate degree or direct entry from secondary school). We found no significant difference (p>0.05) in overall performance of first-year male, female, graduate-entry, or school-entry students. Students rated live-animal practical classes and facilitated problem-based learning as the most favored method of teaching, and this response was not biased by gender or pre-vet school experience. Men rated multiple-choice question (MCQ) assessment more highly than women, but there was no significant difference (p>0.05) in male or female performance on MCQ examinations. Men and women also performed comparably well in essays (both knowledge based and critical), suggesting that the retention of knowledge and depth of understanding was not gender biased. However, men performed significantly (p<0.05) better on critical essays compared with knowledge-based essays, and this trend was shown for both graduate-entry and school-entry students alike. We found no significant difference (p>0.05) in performance between groups of students with multimodal, kinesthetic, or reading-writing learning styles. Students with an auditory preference consistently performed less well in all types of assessment (p<0.05), but the number of students in this group was very small. Students whose learning style could not be specifically determined by Visual, Auditory, Read/write, Kinesthetic (VARK) tests consistently performed better than other groups, but this finding was not significant. Our results indicate that the Nottingham veterinary course does not bias for or against any of the variables we investigated.

Veterinary students’ understanding of a career in practice

Lack of a clear perception of the realities of a career in veterinary medicine could adversely affect young graduates’ satisfaction with the profession and their long-term commitment to it. Veterinary...

Attitudes of engineering students to mathematics a comparison across universities

There is much debate about the level of mathematics ability of students starting engineering courses at university. However, attempts to determine a student's performance in mathematics as a function of their mathematics qualification on entry is very difficult, as a wide range of performance is achieved by students with the same qualifications. Clearly other factors are at work, including the attitudes of students towards mathematics teaching. This paper presents the results of a survey of the attitude of engineering students to mathematics in three different UK universities. Further, information has also been obtained on students' ratings of teaching methods and mathematics topics. From this, it is found that students can be placed into five groupings known as High Flyers, Downhillers, Ambivalents with Good Pre-University Teaching, Ambivalents with Poor Pre-University Teaching and Haters. The members of each of these groups record significantly different responses to many of the questions posed, but in particular to their university, gender, home or overseas status, mathematics qualification on entry to university, the rating of the difficulty of mathematics topics and the rating of the usefulness of teaching methods. Finally, a factor analysis shows that three independent factors are important in determining students' attitudes: the pre-university experience, the university experience and the perceived difficulty and workload at university.

Opportunity for pre-university experience

Opportunity for pre-university experience

SEGREGATION AND RACIAL INTERACTION∗

ABSTRACT Black school age children of Indianapolis have far greater possibilities for interracial contact than whites in their neighborhoods or schools. Confirmation is provided by the pre-university experiences of students. Black university students reported a far higher incidence of having lived near whites, of having white friends, and of having engaged in activities with whites than vice versa.