Undergraduate Discipline Research Articles

Investigating the individual interests of undergraduate students in STEM disciplines

Despite massive investments in the education sector to empower youth in Qatar, a vital concern remains to retain students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines at the undergraduate level. Even though the country is committed to fostering a knowledge-based society, the low interest of undergraduates in STEM disciplines remains a vital challenge. To investigate this, the current study uses a survey methodology to investigate the perspectives of 172 undergraduate students to understand quantitatively the factors that influence their individual interests in STEM disciplines. Non-parametric significance tests and binary logistic regressions were employed to quantitatively measure the direct factors and predictors that affect students’ individual interests. Findings indicated that aspects like students’ reason/motivation to join STEM, their interaction with faculty, the habit of skipping classes, the difficulty faced in the curriculum, and their parents’ highest educational qualification have an association with individual interests. Also, it was found that demographics such as age group, ethnicity, undergraduate discipline, undergraduate year, parent’s employment status, and mother’s highest educational qualification do not contribute to significant differences in students’ individual interests. These conclusions provide important implications for educationists and policymakers to devise constructive reforms to enhance undergraduate students’ individual interests, thereby improving their persistence in STEM.

Business Schools Rex: Warwick University Ltd

On Wednesday 3 June 1970, Warwick University’s Board of Social Studies discussed a memorandum cautioning against the expansion of ‘business studies’ by John Rex, the recently arrived professor of sociology. Distinguishing industrial relations from business studies, he argued that the latter should not be taught as an undergraduate discipline. Coming so soon after the issue of the ‘Warwick Files’, Rex’s memorandum was delivered into a charged situation in which many students and staff had become profoundly disenchanted with the university’s management. However, fifty years later the business school now dominates Warwick and almost all UK universities, being both its cash machine and its operating language. Industrial relations has been eclipsed as a field of enquiry but more important is the way that business and management practice now provides the operating language and governance of the university itself. It is now far too late to imagine that universities might have nothing to do with business, but there is an opportunity to radicalize what ‘business studies’ means. If we shut down the business school, then we must replace it with the School for Organizing, a place for studying how we rescue ourselves from carbon capitalism.

The Universal Decimal Classification in the Organization of Knowledge: Representing the Concept of Ethics

Training in knowl­edge organization (KO) involves an understanding of theories for the construction, maintenance, use, and evaluation of logical documentary languages. Teaching these KO concepts in LIS programs are related basically to accessing documents and retrieving their intellectual content. This study focuses on access to documents and exploring the ethical theme in all its dimensions as applied to the teaching of an undergraduate discipline as part of a Bachelor of Library Science degree offered at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG). As a methodology, a Project-based Pedagogy strategy is used in the teaching of a discipline called “Classification Systems: UDC” for students to classify a documentary resource from a collection on ethics. The teaching of bibliographic classification requires students to learn how to use the mechanisms available to form a notation as well as to use a syntax schema (tables) appropriately. Students also learn to determine a place for the document in the collection, considering the knowl­edge represented in the collection as a whole. Altogether, such a practice can help students to understand the theory underlying a classification system. The results show that the students were able to understand the basic concepts of knowl­edge organization. The students were also able to observe that the elements of the different tables of a classification tool are essential mechanisms for the organization of knowl­edge in other contexts, especially for specific purposes.

Research on the Development of Financial and Economic Subjects under ＂New Economic Management＂

Economy class specialty is an important part of national innovation system construction, because the traditional undergraduate training structure already can not adapt to ＂new management＂ concept, based on the financial profession as the research object, research results show that the financial professional course lack of diversity and flexibility, interdisciplinary talents cultivation deficiencies and discipline organization lack of good coordination mechanism. Therefore, this paper puts forward the innovative ideas of the undergraduate discipline construction of finance and economics under the ＂new economic management＂, which is of great importance to the exploration of modern economic science in China and the cultivation of high‐quality undergraduate economics discipline.

Analysis of Undergraduates’ Compulsory Courses in China’s Comprehensive Universities – A Case Study

Drawing on case study evidence, this article explores the development of compulsory courses in a China’s high-level comprehensive university, which has achieved good results in the procedure of Quality Assessment of Undergraduate Education (QAUE) and China Discipline Ranking (CDR) issued by Ministry of Education (MOE). The general undergraduate majors of this university are classified into 5 categories, namely, journalism and communication, economics and management, science and engineering, foreign language and literature, humanities and social science. The research scope is from grade 2007 to 2017, 2007 fall to 2018 spring semester, respectively. According to the requirements of MOE, the compulsory courses are divided into two parts: public and professional. The public part mainly refers to the courses of physical education, ideological and political and elementary computer science, while the professional part is mostly relevant to the courses associate with the major. The laws of two parts are studied by utilizing the features of course name, course ID, credits and appropriate semester. The conditions of characteristic development, the workload of teachers and students and the interdisciplinary platform, which are universal in Chinese Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), are mentioned.

Searching for other images in education: report of an in-discipline between school and culture

The article is a deployment of the lived experience in an undergraduate discipline in which was studied the images present in textbooks and their effect on the representational thought and trials with images were held in the search to cause erasures in the usual way they have in education. A route that culminated in a final challenge for the students: to create an educational activity inter-multi-trans-disciplinary with images, where they fell outside of the purely representational way. “An impossible activity” in the words of the students, which made clear the possibilities that are created at the images.

Searching for other images in education: report of an in-discipline between school and culture

The article is a deployment of the lived experience in an undergraduate discipline in which was studied the images present in textbooks and their effect on the representational thought and trials with images were held in the search to cause erasures in the usual way they have in education. A route that culminated in a final challenge for the students: to create an educational activity inter-multi-trans-disciplinary with images, where they fell outside of the purely representational way. “An impossible activity” in the words of the students, which made clear the possibilities that are created at the images.

Aprendizagem baseada em problemas e modelagem de processos no ensino de sistemas de informação

Nas metodologias ativas de aprendizagem é comum o uso da resolução de problemas como estratégias de ensino, visando promover a aprendizagem significativa. Este artigo tem como objetivo verificar o uso da modelagem de processos como recurso didático no ensino baseado em análise de situações-problemas, as quais requerem soluções de sistemas de informação. Trata-se de um estudo qualitativo baseado em um relato de experiência vivenciado em uma disciplina de graduação. A estratégia de ensino adotada na disciplina baseou-se no método de Aprendizagem Baseada em Problemas. Na referida disciplina, os alunos analisam situações-problemas reais, interagindo com usuários de processos que requerem soluções de sistemas de informação. Utilizou-se uma abordagem que envolve modelar o estado atual de processos, identificar pontos de melhoria e propor soluções de sistemas de informação em modelagens que representem o estado futuro dos processos. Como resultado do estudo, são descritos alguns dos processos que foram analisados durante a disciplina. O estudo indica o potencial de aplicabilidade da modelagem de processos para a análise de situações problemas em disciplinas de graduação em diferentes áreas de conhecimento.

The Three Cities of George Steiner

The Three Cities of George Steiner Jerry White Conceivably, it is no longer legitimate for any one individual to publish on ancient Greek literature and on chess, on philosophy and the Russian novel, on linguistics and aesthetics; perhaps it is no longer advisable to hold university chairs while writing fiction and contributing more than 150 review-essays to the New Yorker, where, in late 1966, I was asked to help fill the gap left by Edmund Wilson. Even where something of genius is in play, as in a Koestler, the risks are steep. To smaller gifts, they may be damning. As the close comes nearer, I know that my crowded solitude, that the absence of any school or movement originating in my work, and that the sums of its imperfections are, in considerable measure, of my own doing. George Steiner, Errata: A Memoir (155) Any reading engages the history and tenets of language. Comparative Literature, while alert to the contributions of formal and abstract linguistics, is immersed in, delights in, the prodigal diversity of natural languages. Comparative Literature listens and reads after Babel. George Steiner, “What Is Comparative Literature?” (No Passion Spent 150) It would be tempting to say that the death of George Steiner in February 2020 marked the end of an era. Without a doubt, that impulse should be resisted, although as I think we will see, it is difficult to resist it entirely. I would certainly agree with his own damning self-assessment, that he did not found a school as such, and I even agree [End Page 230] that the failure of such a school to emerge does have to do with his own excesses, in both aspiration and rhetoric. But, clearly, his spirit lives on in figures such as Elif Batuman, who is every bit as important for many young literary types as Steiner was for the generation that came of intellectual age in the 1970s. However, saying a little bit about “his spirit” can illuminate some key aspects of our present literary age, its heritage, and the important revisions to that heritage which figures such as Batuman are making. When I say “his spirit,” I do not mean anything particularly spiritual or religious—although I will have case to discuss Steiner’s relationship to religion—but rather in the sense of something like “the spirit of SanFran.” With that in mind, I would like to propose a much lankier formulation to describe Steiner; he embodied “the spirit of Chicago/Cambridge/Geneva.” These three places formed him, and their influence is strongly visible throughout his incredibly diverse body of work. It is worth taking each place in its turn. Chicago Steiner’s early life unfolded in the Paris of his birth in 1929 and the New York of his adolescence—his family, having already left Vienna, moved there when he was 11. All of these polyglot metropoles clearly influenced the seriousness with which he took language, and just as importantly, the ease with which he mixed them. His mother tongue of German was learned in the family home in the City of Light; he completed his lycée diploma in the heart of Manhattan. That diploma is what led him away from the east coast establishment and towards an educational environment that was at once more open-minded and more rigorous. Steiner wrote in his 1997 memoir Errata that “[a] brief visit to Yale during ‘orientation week’ made it plain to me that Jews there were consigned to a ghetto of pinched politeness” (40). The Midwest beckoned. He went on in Errata to describe the University of Chicago of the late 1940s as follows: Scornful of the childish waste and banalities clogging American collegiate syllabi, Robert Maynard Hutchins allowed applicants to sit examinations in almost every undergraduate discipline. If they scored high enough, they were dispensed from taking the regular courses. This could, exceptionally, melt down the requisites for a degree to one year. My performance in the sciences and sociology (even the word was new to me) was lamentable. Coming out of the mandarinate of a French education with emphasis on Greek and Latin, I would, at Chicago, have four demanding terms ahead...

A promoção da habilidade Comunicação Persuasiva por meio do ensino de empreendedorismo

O empreendedorismo e a inovação tecnológica são considerados importantes propulsores de desenvolvimento socioeconômico e por isso têm sido incluídos como tema no ensino superior, na pesquisa acadêmica e na extensão universitária. Este artigo objetiva analisar a promoção da habilidade de comunicação persuasiva por meio do ensino de empreendedorismo. Visando atender a este objetivo é apresenta uma dinâmica que pode ser utilizada como estratégia de ensino de empreendedorismo no ensino superior envolvendo a promoção da habilidade empreendedora Comunicação Persuasiva. Trata-se de um estudo baseado em pesquisa de natureza qualitativa, no qual a dinâmica desenvolvida foi aplicada por três semestres em uma disciplina de graduação que aborda administração e empreendedorismo. Em forma de relato de experiência, são apresentadas as etapas e tarefas que compõem a dinâmica, destacando-se o fato de que os alunos utilizaram diferentes formas de comunicação para convencer potenciais clientes e investidores a respeito de uma ideia inovadora. O relato enfatiza que a habilidade empreendedora de comunicação persuasiva pode ser promovida em sala de aula com uso da dinâmica antes mencionada, fazendo com que a turma utilize recursos da comunicação visual e da comunicação verbal para defender propostas de negócios. O estudo indica que a dinâmica possui potencial para ser aplicada em disciplinas de diferentes áreas de conhecimento que visam ensinar empreendedorismo.

A multi-process pilot plant as a didactical tool for the teaching of industrial processes control in electrical engineering course

The control of industrial processes is an important theme covered by electrical engineering courses. The implementation of practical activities in laboratories with physical systems and devices complements the theory about control and automation addressed in lectures and enables apprentices to face real situations and problems present in industrial environments. This paper discusses the use of a didactic pilot plant by the students of University of São Paulo in an electrical engineering undergraduate discipline based on the project-based learning approach. The students performed simultaneous experiments with the following control systems: water temperature in the plant, water level in two reservoirs, and water flow rate through the plant, and also monitored the variables of the processes through a supervisory system. The answers of a questionnaire applied to the students after each project and the results registered in technical reports illustrate their performance in the discipline and provide a positive feedback on the use of the industrial plant as a didactic tool.

The Use of A Serious Game and Academic Performance of Undergraduate Accounting Students: An Empirical Analysis

The literature on serious games (SGs) indicates that they are very useful tools to improve the teaching/learning process. In this paper, we analyze some potential benefits of a SG on academic performance of undergraduate accounting students. The database is comprised of scores obtained by students during an undergraduate discipline related with accounting history. The game was presented to the students during the academic semester of the discipline; they also developed an academic activity using the concepts of this game. The main results of the paper indicate that students who used the game and scored the maximum grade in this activity also registered higher indexes of academic performance in such discipline. These results reinforce the benefits of the SG to interact with undergraduate students and teach academic content.

Insulin as a model to teach three-dimensional structure of proteins

As proteínas são macromoléculas amplamente encontradas nas células e possuem inúmeras funções fisiológicas. Consequentemente, é de fundamental construir um conhecimento sólido sobre estrutura tridimensional das proteínas. As estruturas proteicas são geralmente estudadas durante a graduação na disciplina de Bioquímica. Neste trabalho descrevemos intervenções pedagógicas planejadas para aumentar o conhecimento de estudantes de Química licenciatura sobre a estrutura de proteínas. As atividades foram realizadas utilizando materiais baratos para encorajar a sua implementação no ensino médio pelos futuros professores. A partir da estrutura primária da insulina, os estudantes construíram a estrutura tridimensional desta proteína. Após as atividades, os estudantes destacaram uma melhora nos seus conhecimentos prévios sobre a estrutura das proteínas. A construção de um modelo tridimensional juntamente com outras atividades parece ser uma maneira eficiente de promover o aprendizado sobre a estrutura de proteínas aos estudantes de graduação. A metodologia utilizada foi simples e de baixo custo e pode ser utilizada tanto no nível universitário como no nível do ensino médio.

Institutional approaches for building intercultural understanding into the curriculum: an Australian perspective

Australia is one of the most culturally diverse countries in the world. Since World War II, seven million immigrants from more than 150 countries have settled in Australia. Since that time, Federal governmental changes to its policies on immigration has recognized the importance of cultural diversity in its population. Educational institutions have also responded by initiating a variety of strategies and developing curricula aimed at achieving equitable education and social outcomes and promote the acceptance of people from ethnically diverse backgrounds. This paper first examines how Australia has developed policy that has enabled education to become its third largest export market worth more than AUD$18 billion in 2014–2015. It focuses on some of the state and federal government policies that have encouraged the internationalization within the primary, secondary and tertiary education sectors and then gives an overview of some of the institutional strategies and policies that have been implemented at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT University) at university level and geospatial science undergraduate discipline level. A range of challenges at the governmental, institutional and discipline level faced by those individual academics wishing to incorporate internationalization into their respective curricula are investigated.

Building and construction students’ skills development for employability – reframing assessment for learning in discipline-specific contexts

ABSTRACTThe international debate on student skills development for employability has advanced institutional initiatives for teaching and learning, but to date lacks detailed research studies mapping disciplinary implementation linked to student learning feedback. This paper reports on a five year higher education research study from Australia framed by a reflective practice-based methodology. Students in the undergraduate discipline of building and construction management monitored the development of their academic attributes and skills for employability. This work contributes new knowledge on constructive alignment and implementation of assessment for learning and early professional skills development. Research findings indicate that student skills for employability are facilitated through: (1) Discipline-based curriculum design linking university and industry skills expectations. (2) Clear interweaving of learning contexts and assessments for students to experience and identify academic and professional learning dimensions (metacognition). (3) Constructive alignment for skills development through scaffolded assessment learning. (4) A ‘constructive, explicit and reflective’ teaching approach engaging students in their own generic and professional skills development.

应用型本科学科竞赛与创新项目联合推动实践教学模式的改革研究

在双创背景下，高校的实践教学模式的改革与创新一直是备受关注的问题。本文章以厦门理工学院为研究对象，通过引导学生以赛为学的方法，应用型本科学科竞赛与创新项目相结合，研究如何改革传统教学模式，推动实践教学模式，培养高校人才的教育问题。 In the double background, the reform and innovation of practical teaching mode in university have been a problem of concern. This paper takes Xiamen University of Technology as the re-search object. By guiding students to learn in the game and by the combination of applied under-graduate discipline competition and innovation project, we study on how to reform the traditional teaching model, how to promote the practical teaching mode, and education problems about how to cultivate college talents.

Pesquisa em Música: Reflexões sobre memórias musicais e dimensões da “experiência de si”

Neste artigo é descrita uma pesquisa realizada em uma Disciplina Complementar de Graduação de um curso de Licenciatura em Música do Sul do Brasil. Na proposta metodológica dessa disciplina são problematizadas narrativas orais e escritas sobre memórias musicais dos licenciandos. A análise é feita a partir dos escritos no trabalho final da disciplina que são analisados como “narrativas de si” a partir das dimensões da “experiência de si” trazidas por Larrosa (1994). Acredita-se que as reflexões sobre esta pesquisa e as consequentes problematizações sobre a metodologia de ensino desse tipo e disciplina possam contribuir para os debates sobre ensino de pesquisa na área de Educação Musical, bem como para a contribuição das artes para a área de Educação.

Proposta de preparação e caracterização de ésteres: um experimento de análise orgânica na graduação

Esters consist in one of the classes of chemical substances widely found in nature. Some esters of low molecular weight tend to have a pleasant flavor and therefore are widely used by food and drinks industries. The esters can be synthesized by the reaction between a carboxylate anion and an alkyl halide, or by Fischer esterification reaction. Industrially, this last reaction is one of the main procedures for the esters synthesis, and according this work, a simple experiment about this specific obtaining method is described and proposed for undergraduate discipline of organic analysis. The preparation of alkyl levulinate and lactate, from levulinic acid and/or lactic acid, is carried out in laboratory, easily, requiring three periods of four hours and is useful for chemistry teaching.

Materiais e estratégias didáticas em ambiente virtual de Aprendizagem

Discute as bases teóricas e metodológicas da elaboração de material didático para uma disciplina presencial de Física Básica, no âmbito da graduação, em um ambiente virtual de aprendizagem (AVA), assim como a integração deste enquanto ferramenta de apoio ao ensino presencial. A área da Física possui variados recursos digitais, disponíveis em rede, para serem utilizados no processo de ensino-aprendizagem. Tais possibilidades estão baseadas em pesquisas e relatos de experiências que têm resultado em melhorias na aprendizagem e em potencialidades de abordagem de conceitos e temas dessa área do conhecimento. Assim, propõe-se integrar nossos olhares àqueles já lançados para esses recursos disponíveis em rede, a fim de pensá-los na perspectiva do design instrucional (DI), que vem auxiliar na estruturação de conteúdos, na sugestão da maneira mais adequada para sua apresentação e na união com atividades de aprendizagem elaboradas e implementadas por meio das ferramentas do AVA. Os resultados mostram que, do ponto de vista dos alunos, o AVA desenvolvido atende aos objetivos pretendidos porque complementa as discussões em sala, diversifica o conteúdo e atende a diferentes estilos de aprendizagem

Interdisciplinary collaboration for clinical skills acquisition in the transition to ward-based learning

Internationalization of higher education affects strategies accommodating different learning styles and the provision of communication and learning support to students. This paper describes clinical communication skills training initiatives developed by linguists in collaboration with clinicians for undergraduate medical students on their first clinical placement. This approach deconstructs the language, underlying behavioural factors, argumentation and interactional features of professional tasks, serving several pedagogical purposes: learning needs analysis; deconstruction of tutor modelling; and concrete strategies to improve learner performance. Communication frameworks and their application are described with two illustrative cases. Three years of evaluation data determined impacts on students and tutors. Students report increased confidence in communication, capacity to practise clinical skills independently and supported integration of medical knowledge into clinical practice. Co-delivery enriched teaching methodology for tutors. Collaboration between linguists and clinicians provides a useful model for clinical and communication skills teaching in a wide range of undergraduate and graduate clinical and health discipline training contexts.