Supporting Students Research Articles

How the support that students receive during online learning influences their academic performance

AbstractIn recent years educational institutions are increasingly using online learning and because of this trend it is necessary to investigate its impact on student academic performance. Although this topic has been addressed in different educational fields before, there is an objective justification for our approach. Thus, the reasoning behind this particular research is the fact that recent findings have shown that the academic performance of students using online education is affected by a series of motivating factors which can have an impact on their performance. The main goal of this paper is to highlight and analyze the mediating effect of intrinsic student motivation and student academic engagement and how they affect the relationship between the range of support, which students receive during their online learning and thus their academic performance. This study was conducted in two higher educational institutions in Mexico and Romania, with a sample of 822 students. The data was analyzed using a second generational PLS-SEM technique. The results confirm that the support students enjoy during online learning has no direct impact on their academic performance, unless it is fully mediated by their own intrinsic motivation and academic engagement. The influence of Gender was also analyzed, but it was not found to be a determining factor of academic performance in both higher educational institutions. These findings not only have theoretical and practical implications for students, teachers and education authorities, they also help us to broaden the field of knowledge in the e-learning environment.

The Relationship between Physical Fitness/Physical Condition and Students' Sleep Quality

Background: This research aims to find out whether there is a relationship or relationship between physical fitness/good physical condition and sleep quality in high school students. Methods: The problem is sleep quality and physical condition. The technique used in this research is a quantitative approach. The population in this study were high school students. The sample taken in this study was 30 high school students by distributing PSQI questionnaires to the students in the sample. It can be concluded that there is a relationship between physical fitness and a person's sleep quality which is quite low Results: Through statistical analysis, we observed a significant positive correlation between physical fitness levels and sleep quality among students. Students with higher levels of physical fitness tended to report better sleep quality compared to those with lower fitness levels. Conclusion: In conclusion, our research highlights the intricate interplay between physical fitness/physical condition and students' sleep quality. By prioritizing physical activity, adopting a holistic approach to student health, addressing lifestyle factors, and advancing future research efforts, educational institutions can better support students in achieving optimal physical and mental well-being.

Supporting Widening Participation Students Without Creating Dependency or Leaving Them Unprepared for Work in the Neoliberal Era

In a rapidly changing employment context, research holds that the desirable attributes of grit, resilience and context adaptation will become fundamental to the ongoing employability of current students. The employment landscape has become atomised and volatile under neoliberalism, exemplified by the broken psychological contract between employer and employee. Graduates from widening participation backgrounds entering the labour market will see their existing barriers to career success exacerbated by these changes in the world of work. For students from widening participation backgrounds, the neoliberal policies that underpin these changes are congruent with other policies that exacerbate their socioeconomic and educational disadvantages. Consequently, universities must play an increasingly important role in supporting students within and outside of the taught curriculum. This paper explores ways universities can continue to provide students with the necessary support without building dependencies or expectations of support that would inhibit the development of grit, resilience, and context adaptation. As a starting point for further discussion, this paper proposes guiding principles for universities to inform institutional Teaching and Learning strategies.

COUNSELING APPROACHES AND TECHNIQUES FOR MANAGING ACADEMIC STRESS IN STUDENTS: A LITERATURE REVIEW

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought significant changes and challenges to students, particularly in the realm of education, leading to the emergence of new problems such as academic stress. This study aimed to analyze counseling approaches and techniques applied to assist students in coping with academic stress during the transition from offline to online learning. A literature review method was employed to identify relevant articles published between 2019 and 2021. Eleven articles meeting the inclusion criteria were selected for analysis. The results revealed a variety of counseling approaches and techniques used to manage academic stress, including group counseling, cognitive behavioral therapy, expressive writing therapy, self-control techniques, self-instruction techniques, stress inoculation training, cognitive restructuring, coping strategies, time management, and relaxation meditation techniques. Group counseling emerged as a preferred method due to its effectiveness in providing mutual support and addressing shared concerns among students. Cognitive behavioral counseling was found to be effective in modifying irrational thoughts and behaviors associated with academic stress. Techniques from other counseling approaches, such as expressive writing and stress inoculation training, complemented interventions for managing academic stress. Successful intervention requires counselors to consider individual student needs, the onset and causes of stress symptoms, and students' self-defense mechanisms. By tailoring interventions to these factors, counselors can effectively reduce academic stress and support students in achieving their academic and personal goals.

Supporting Students Who Are Grieving: Interventions and Practices for School Counselors

Supporting Students Who Are Grieving: Interventions and Practices for School Counselors

Development of the PICOT Decision Tree: A Tool to Support Student Learning.

Development of the PICOT Decision Tree: A Tool to Support Student Learning.

Fostering Inclusivity: Strategies for Supporting Students with Special Needs in Mainstream Classrooms

Fostering Inclusivity: Strategies for Supporting Students with Special Needs in Mainstream Classrooms

The Relationship Between Social Support, Self-Efficacy and Procrastination and Student Academic Stress in Distance Learning During the Covid-19 Pandemic

In the midst of the pandemic, changes in the education system at all levels have become a necessity. Face-to-face classroom learning has shifted to distance learning, utilizing various media tools such as Schoology, Zoom, and others. This change has brought significant impacts on students, one of which is the increased level of academic stress. Academic stress can be influenced by various factors, including self-efficacy and the tendency to procrastinate, as well as social support from the surrounding environment. The aim of this research is to examine the relationship between social support, self-efficacy, academic procrastination, and academic stress experienced by students during distance learning. This study employs a quantitative correlational method, involving 408 undergraduate students at Universitas Muhammadiyah Surakarta. Respondents were randomly selected using criteria that they had participated in distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. The collected data were then analyzed using multiple linear regression analysis. The results of the study indicate that social support, self-efficacy, and academic procrastination are correlated with academic stress, with a correlation coefficient (R) of 0.442 and an effective contribution of 19.6%.

Supporting Students' Knowledge Activation before, during, and after Reading

AbstractKnowledge activation and knowledge building are essential for reading comprehension. Yet, how can teachers support students in accessing and applying their existing knowledge and experiences during reading? This article provides six evidence‐based principles to consider during literacy instruction, which are drawn from a recent systematic literature review that examined prior knowledge activation instructional scaffolds. These principles are: (a) activate knowledge before, during, and after reading; (b) activate knowledge collaboratively; (c) support students in understanding connections between concepts; (d) support students in recognizing discrepancies between their knowledge and the text; (e) address misunderstandings; and (f) consider the amount of topic‐specific knowledge that students have. These principles have the potential to shift how teachers think about the role of knowledge activation throughout the reading process.

Librarians, Undergraduate Research, and Diversity Support Programs: Partnerships Towards Social Justice

Science librarianship has barely scratched the surface when grappling with the injustice in our profession and the disciplines we support. Here we provide one example of how STEM librarians can work within the academy to resist systemic barriers and support students from marginalized communities. This paper will explore how librarians and libraries can partner with various diversity support programs and undergraduate research programs targeted toward undergraduate students with marginalized identities. We will then share the perspective of two women of color who have developed this partnership. This article provides the separate and shared perspectives of a science librarian and undergraduate research director in working together to remove barriers students may face in their higher education journeys by creating relationships and meaningful connections.

An Integrative Systematic Approach to Supporting Student Wellness: An Applied Case Example

As schools work toward addressing the youth mental health crisis, Student Assistance Programs (SAPs) can serve as a service delivery model to proactively offer a continuum of support. A SAP involves education and building awareness, prevention, early identification, referral, intervention, and guided support services. With the rising mental health need that was exacerbated by COVID-19, describing one district’s efforts can assist other schools in planning their own continuum of support within a SAP. This article provides a case example of one district’s efforts to create a system that integrates universal screening data and school and community support structures supporting students’ wellness. We describe the district’s continuum of support and early identification and intervention efforts, their systematic approach to integrating systems, and their teaming process. We will also report the percentages of students who are identified on wellness benchmarking and screening tools in addition to the percentage referred for additional support. We conclude by reviewing the implications for practice and future research.

Para Medicine Students’ Experiences of Virtual Education: A Qualitative Study

Background: The emergence of the Internet and its development led to the expansion of virtual education. The development of virtual education in recent years has had a tremendous impact on the improvement of education and the establishment of educational justice in different parts of the world. Despite its advantages, virtual education is also associated with some challenges. The present study aimed to investigate para medicine students’ experiences of virtual education. Methods: This qualitative study was conducted using conventional content analysis. The participants were 25 students in various fields of para medicine who were selected using purposive sampling. The study took place at universities in the north of Iran. The data were collected using semi-structured in-depth interviews and focus groups from January to April 2022. The collected data were analyzed using Graneheim and Lundman’s qualitative content analysis method. Results: The core category identified in this study was from helplessness to interaction which was divided into three main categories (challenges and desperation, deprivation of mutual interaction and learning, and resilience and adaptation) and fourteen subcategories. Conclusion: The main theme extracted from the interviews with the participants was from helplessness to interaction. When a person has numerous failures, cannot control environmental conditions, and feels the ineffectiveness of their activity and response, they will experience a sense of vulnerability. Thus, the person has to accept the conditions and interact with them. In other words, interaction is a skill that improves the ability to quickly learn new skills and behaviors in response to the conditions. Thus, identifying challenges and realizing the weaknesses, strengths, opportunities, and threats governing the existing virtual education environment can help to turn many threats into opportunities, promote virtual education, and support teachers and students to improve the quality and quantity of the teaching-learning process in the COVID-19 and post-COVID-19 era.

Supporting Student Linguistic Identity and Autonomy in Directed Self Placement Through Linguistic Domains Using Qualtrics Scoring

In this article, we review the current and dynamic state of multilingual writers, especially their experiences in Composition and with English self-placement methods. Then, we position our institution and department’s theoretical underpinnings for support of multilingual writers and their self-placement, and we describe how we utilized Cavazos and Karaman’s (2021) Translingual Disposition Questionnaire as a framework for our recent revision of our Directed Self-Placement survey and utilized Qualtrics scoring tools to provide students with feedback on a novel language domain.  Our intent was to offer multilingual students transparency and choice in the English placement process so they could select the first year Composition course that best matched their needs. We hope that other WPAs gain insight on how to integrate asset-based philosophies and linguistic domains using Qualtrics scoring to offer their multilingual students more autonomy in their first year Composition experiences.  

Developing a scale to explore self-regulatory approaches to assessment and feedback with academics in higher education.

Students need to acquire high level self-regulatory skills if they are to be successful within higher education, and academics need support in facilitating this. In this article we explore how the current research gap between knowledge of self-regulatory assessment and feedback (SRAF) practices, and academics' professional training in it can be bridged. SRAF tools were used with academics to explore their understandings of and training needs in SRAF; central to this work was the development of a SRAF scale. We consider the value of such tools in supporting academics' professional development needs in SRAF. The reliability and validity of the SRAF scale was tested using exploratory factor analyses (EFA). Iterative EFA resulted in a 17 item support required SRAF scale (SR). Two underpinning factors: Creating the Conditions for SRAF, and Supporting Students' SRAF Skills Development were identified. The reliability of the instrument supported its primary use as a tool to facilitate academics' professional development in fostering students' self-regulatory skills. Our findings highlight the importance of supporting academics in developing strategies to maximize students' metacognitive skills and motivation in assessment and feedback, contingent on effective assessment design. Such professional development needs to be mindful of individual and contextual factors impacting academics' access to, and confidence and competence in, using SRAF in practice. This research is important in highlighting potential disconnects between where academics' focus their attention in assessment, and what is known to have most impact on student learning success. The SRAF tools have considerable potential in supporting translation of theory into practice as part of sustained professional development for academics in higher education.

Supporting Upper Elementary Students in Learning AI Concepts with Story-Driven Game-Based Learning

Artificial intelligence (AI) is quickly finding broad application in every sector of society. This rapid expansion of AI has increased the need to cultivate an AI-literate workforce, and it calls for introducing AI education into K-12 classrooms to foster students’ awareness and interest in AI. With rich narratives and opportunities for situated problem solving, story-driven game-based learning offers a promising approach for creating engaging and effective K-12 AI learning experiences. In this paper, we present our ongoing work to iteratively design, develop, and evaluate a story-driven game-based learning environment focused on AI education for upper elementary students (ages 8 to 11). The game features a science inquiry problem centering on an endangered species and incorporates a Use-Modify-Create scaffolding framework to promote student learning. We present findings from an analysis of data collected from 16 students playing the game's quest focused on AI planning. Results suggest that the scaffolding framework provided students with the knowledge they needed to advance through the quest and that overall, students experienced positive learning outcomes.

The Learning Then and Now: A Case Study on the Effects of Gender on Online Learning Support Post Covid-19 at a South African University

This paper explored students’ online learning experiences before and post-Covid-19 pandemic with a focus on whether all students are supported to have online learning access without considering their gender differences. The questionnaire was used to collect data from 247 students who were randomly selected from the cohort of 400 students. The study tested the four null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance: (i) H0: There is no significant association between gender and access to laptop for learning purposes, (ii) H0: There is no significant association between gender and access to internet for learning purposes, (iii) H0: There is no significant association between gender and access to data for learning purposes and (iv) H0: There is no significant association between gender and who provides data to access internet for learning purposes. This study revealed that there is no significant association between the following: gender and access to laptops, gender and access to the internet, gender and access to data, and gender and who provides data to access internet for learning purposes. The study therefore recommended the following: lecturers must not conduct classes when students are at their homes assuming that every student has access to internet connectivity; the provision of necessary support for online learning needs to be strengthened by all the parties who are responsible for support students with relevant equipment for active online learning so that no students is left behind when blended learning is implemented; support students with necessary gadgets and adequate amount of data to enhance online learning; students must be supplied with laptops regardless of gender and year of study. The paper contributes to scholarship by addressing gender disparities in online learning, providing valuable insights for educational institutions, offering a methodological model for future studies, and informing policies to create a more inclusive and effective online learning environment. Keywords: Covid-19, Institution, Online Learning, Remote Learning, Student Access, Gender, Differences, Technology

All You Need Is Music: Supporting Medical Students' Emotional Development With a Music-Based Pedagogy.

Although the practice of medicine is often emotionally challenging, medical curricula seldom systematically address the emotional development of medical students. To fill this gap, the authors developed and evaluated an innovative pedagogical activity based on music to nurture medical students' emotional development. The authors believe that the metaphoric nature of music offers an efficient venue for exploring emotion perception, expression, and regulation. The pedagogical activity Emotions in Medicine was carried out throughout 2020 and 2021 and consisted of 4 encounters to explore: (1) emotion perception, (2) emotion expression, (3) emotion regulation, and (4) the role of emotions in medical practice. During all encounters, the authors used music to evoke students' emotions and focused the discussions on the relevance of emotions for meaningful medical practice. Emotional intelligence before and after the workshop was tested using the Schutte Self-Report Emotional Intelligence Test (SSEIT), a validated psychometric scale. The workshop facilitated emotional connection among students and created a safe space to explore the role of emotions in medical practice. The mean total pretest SSEIT score was 110 (SD = 14.2); it increased to 116.8 (SD = 16.1) in the posttest ( P < .001). This increase was true across its 4 dimensions: (1) perception of emotions, (2) management of own emotions (3) management of others' emotions, and (4) use of emotions. Music can be an active tool to explore the role of emotions in medical practice. It fosters students' capacity to identify and reflect on emotions while exploring their role in patient care. Further (qualitative) research is needed to explore the mechanisms by which music facilitates learning emotion perception, expression, and regulation.

Voluntary E-Learning Exercises Support Students in Mastering Statistics

University students often learn statistics in large classes, and in such learning environments, students face an exceptionally high risk of failure. One reason for this is students’ frequent statistics anxiety. This study shows how students can be supported using e-learning exercises with automated knowledge of correct response feedback, supplementing a face-to-face lecture. To this end, we surveyed 67 undergraduate social science students at a German university and observed their weekly e-learning exercises. We aggregated students’ exercise behavior throughout the semester to explain their exam performance. To control for participation bias, we included essential predictors of educational success, such as prior achievement, motivation, personality traits, time preferences, and goals. We applied a double selection procedure based on the machine learning method Elastic Net to include an optimal but sparse set of control variables. The e-learning exercises indirectly promoted the self-regulated learning techniques of retrieval practice and spacing and provided corrective feedback. Working on the e-learning exercises increased students’ performance on the final exam, even after controlling for the rich set of control variables. Two-thirds of students used our designed e-learning exercises; however, only a fraction of students spaced out the exercises, although students who completed the exercises during the semester and were not cramming at the end benefited additionally. Finally, we discuss how the results of our study inform the literature on retrieval practice, spacing, feedback, and e-learning in higher education.

Supporting underrepresented students in health sciences: a fuzzy cognitive mapping approach to program evaluation

BackgroundThe Students Training in Academia, Health, and Research (STAHR) Program at the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) strives to help students from low-income families that have experienced educational challenges due to poverty and prepare them to enter, persist, and graduate from a health sciences degree program at UMKC. Students in the program participated in fuzzy cognitive mapping (FCM) sessions to ensure that all voices of the program were heard to improve program implementation, and student success, and contribute to an equitable educational environment.MethodsFuzzy Cognitive Mapping sessions for the 2020–2021 cohort of students (n = 52) were conducted to assess the strengths and weaknesses in program implementation, especially through the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Students’ maps were coded by a team of researchers and then confirmed using confirmatory factor analysis.ResultsStatistical analyses reveal that mentorship, workshops, and social support helped students to work toward their goal of obtaining a professional health sciences degree, while a lack of time, remote learning, and outside stressors inhibited their opportunities for success.ConclusionsThe findings from a multipronged analysis of mapping data demonstrate the value of this innovative approach to the field, especially when looking to incorporate student voices.

Structural Relationship among Teacher Support, Academic Self-efficacy and College Students' Learning Engagement in Online English Learning

Structural Relationship among Teacher Support, Academic Self-efficacy and College Students' Learning Engagement in Online English Learning