scholarly journals What Do Undergraduates Learn About Alzheimer Disease? An Analysis of Introduction to Psychology Textbooks

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 761-762
Author(s):  
Zoe Hancock ◽  
Matthew Wynn ◽  
Brian Carpenter
Keyword(s):  
Alzheimer Disease ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Senile Dementia ◽  
Psychology Students ◽  
Accurate Information ◽  
Neurocognitive Disorder ◽  
Word Count ◽  
Coding Scheme ◽  
Students First ◽  
Biological Aspects

Abstract One of the most popular courses for undergraduate students, Introduction to Psychology, is often students’ first exposure to scientific and clinical facts about Alzheimer disease (AD). In order to learn how our current understanding of AD is presented to undergraduate psychology students, we analyzed passages related to Alzheimer disease that appear in contemporary Introduction to Psychology textbooks. We extracted and analyzed passages describing AD from twenty-four best-selling Introduction to Psychology textbooks for both advanced and intermediate undergraduate audiences, published between 2018 and 2020. We applied a standardized coding scheme to the passages to quantify what aspects of AD were most commonly described. Each textbook contained between 1 and 3 major passages regarding AD, most often appearing in the chapters on Memory or Human Development. Average word count for these passages was 409.1 words (SD = 194.8 words). Passages most often covered biological aspects of AD (87.5% of textbooks), symptoms (87.5%), prevalence (75%), and risk factors (75%). Disease prevention (62.5%) and illness course (62.5%) also appeared in the majority of textbooks, while aspects of treatment and management (25%), assessment and diagnosis (12.5%), and caregiving (25%) were mentioned less often. While the majority of books used contemporary and appropriate terminology to describe AD (e.g., “Alzheimer disease,” “dementia,” “neurocognitive disorder”), some textbooks maintained the use of out-of-date and inappropriate terminology (e.g., “senility” or “senile dementia” in 15%). Introductory psychology textbooks provide an opportunity to teach comprehensive, accurate information about AD and publishers and textbook authors could be guided in this effort.

Student mood and responses to standing desks in the college classroom

2021 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan M. Green ◽  
Myia L. Graves ◽  
Carrie M. Edwards ◽  
Edward P. Hebert ◽  
Daniel B. Hollander
Keyword(s):  
Physical Activity ◽  
Metabolic Syndrome ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Sitting Time ◽  
College Classrooms ◽  
Class Meetings ◽  
Students First ◽  
Negative Effect ◽  
Within Subjects

Physical activity enhances physical health, reduces disease, and resists metabolic syndrome and obesity, while sitting for extended periods of time has a negative effect on long term health outcomes. Thus, reducing sitting time has been identified as a health-enhancing goal. The purpose of this study was to explore perceptions and responses of college students to sitting versus standing in class. Five standing desks were placed in a classroom of traditional sitting desks. In a counterbalanced, within subjects design, 88 undergraduate students (age M=21.64, SD=6.55 years) participated in the study. Some participating students first stood at a desk for three consecutive class meetings and then sat for three classes while others sat for three consecutive classes and then stood for three. Surveys were administered at the beginning and end of each class and at the end of six consecutive class sessions. Results indicated that mood was signifi- cantly higher on standing than sitting days, the majority of participants had a favorable perception of the standing-in-class experience, and would use standing stations if the option was available. This study is one of few to examine the viability and response to adding standing desks in college classrooms, and indicates standing desks may be perceived favorably and could be utilized to reduce sitting time.

Major Neurocognitive Disorders

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rajesh R Tampi ◽  
Deena J Tampi
Keyword(s):  
Risk Factors ◽  
Older Adults ◽  
Alzheimer Disease ◽  
Educational Attainment ◽  
Parkinson Disease ◽  
Frontotemporal Lobar Degeneration ◽  
Acetylcholinesterase Inhibitors ◽  
Tau Proteins ◽  
Vascular Pathology ◽  
Neurocognitive Disorder

Major neurocognitive disorder is the most common neurodegenerative condition in the world and the leading cause of dependence and disability among older adults worldwide. There are numerous etiologies for major neurocognitive disorder, of which Alzheimer disease (AD) is the most common. Available evidence indicates that the risk factors for major neurocognitive disorder include older age, female sex, lower educational attainment, obesity, and vascular risk factors, including smoking, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, and hyperlipidemia. Certain etiologies for major neurocognitive disorder are heritable, especially those due to AD and frontotemporal lobar degeneration. The pathophysiologic changes associated with the various etiologies of major neurocognitive disorder include neuronal loss, senile plaques, neurofibrillary tangles, vascular pathology, and α-synuclein neuronal inclusions. Major neurocognitive disorder remains a clinical diagnosis with a thorough history, appropriate laboratory tests, and standardized rating scales assisting in determining the etiology and severity of the condition. In older adults, major neurocognitive disorder must be differentiated from depression and delirium as these three conditions may have similar clinical presentations or may coexist. Current data indicate that approximately a third of the cases of major neurocognitive disorder, especially those due to AD, may be prevented by controlling potentially modifiable risk factors, including diabetes, depression, smoking, physical inactivity, midlife hypertension, midlife obesity, and low educational attainment. Currently, the only Food and Drug Administration–approved medications are acetylcholinesterase inhibitors and memantine for use in major neurocognitive disorder due to AD and rivastigmine (an acetylcholinesterase inhibitor) for major neurocognitive disorder due to Parkinson disease.   Key words: acetylcholinesterase inhibitors, Alzheimer disease, amyloid precursor protein, frontotemporal lobar degeneration, Lewy body disease, major neurocognitive disorder, memantine, Parkinson disease, tau proteins, vascular disease

Academic Motivation and Self-Discipline Strategies for Online Learners

2022 ◽  
pp. 111-128
Author(s):  
Emily Guetzoian
Keyword(s):  
Graduate Students ◽  
Students With Disabilities ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Academic Motivation ◽  
First Generation ◽  
Digital Learning ◽  
Underrepresented Populations ◽  
Online Learners ◽  
Students First ◽  
The Difference

The purpose of this chapter is to examine the academic motivation and self-discipline of online learners and how online academic strategies can translate to the modern-day workforce in the post-pandemic world. The chapter examines digital learning trends and skills students need to prepare them for online learning, such as self-directedness. It discusses the difference between motivation and self-discipline. It also covers strategies specific for different types of learners, such as undergraduate students, graduate students, first-generation students, students with disabilities, and students from underrepresented populations. It provides tips for various levels of educators to support student motivation and self-discipline in the online environment. It also provides tips for students themselves to address their own motivation and self-discipline strategies, such as eliminating distractions, setting goals, using technology effectively, and developing a routine. The chapter concludes with suggestions of how to implement these online academic skills into the workplace.

Cultural intelligence and social distance among undergraduate students in clinical professions

2020 ◽  
pp. 136843022097547
Author(s):  
Ronen Segev ◽  
Shira Mor ◽  
Ronit Even-Zahav ◽  
Efrat Neter
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Social Distance ◽  
Cultural Intelligence ◽  
Professional Training ◽  
Minority Group ◽  
Evaluation Criteria ◽  
Intergroup Conflict ◽  
First Year Students ◽  
Students First ◽  
Majority Students

Cultural competence, also known as cultural intelligence (CQ), is considered a necessary skill in the clinical professions and for resolving intergroup conflict, yet it has not been examined within the framework of the contact hypothesis. The aim of the present research is to extend CQ theory from management to the clinical professions and examine it in a context of intergroup conflict. The present study examined CQ and social distance among entering undergraduate majority (Jewish) and minority (Arab) students in clinical study domains, hypothesizing that CQ will be negatively associated with social distance towards outgroup members and that minority students will report higher CQ than majority students. First-year students ( N = 180) from diverse demographic and study domains (social work, nursing, behavioral sciences) were surveyed. The results reveal a novel negative association between CQ and outgroup social distance, and higher CQ among minority-group students. The finding that students from minority backgrounds were more receptive to intercultural exchange at the outset of their training suggests that CQ theory could be used in training and evaluation criteria of students entering clinical professional training.

Teaching Usability Methods to Undergraduate Students: Can We Measure Changes in Experience?

2007 ◽  
Vol 51 (7) ◽  
pp. 526-530 ◽  
Author(s):  
Terence S. Andre ◽  
Margaret A. Schurig
Keyword(s):  
Human Computer Interaction ◽  
Air Force ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Word Count ◽  
Air Force Academy ◽  
Teaching Laboratory ◽  
Usability Problems ◽  
Attention Focus ◽  
Post Assessment ◽  
Technical Terms

Instructors at the Air Force Academy recently developed an undergraduate Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) laboratory to teach basic components of HCI concepts to undergraduate students. The objective was to develop a teaching laboratory so that students would gain the necessary experience to conduct usability evaluation on local projects. The purpose of this study was to examine the changes in a student's technique of identifying usability problems while using the HCI laboratory. Thirteen students in an undergraduate HCI course participated in the study. During a pre-and post-assessment, we collected several measures in order to quantify any changes experienced by the students as they logged usability problems. These measures included attention focus, number of problems identified, word count, and use of HCI terms in describing usability problems. Results showed that the metrics of number of usability problems identified and the use of HCI technical terms were particularly sensitive to changes over the semester.

scholarly journals Prevalence of Substantive Policy in American Presidential Inaugural Addresses

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Parco
Keyword(s):  
American People ◽  
Inaugural Address ◽  
Word Count ◽  
Policy Issues ◽  
Coding Scheme ◽  
Inaugural Addresses ◽  
State Of The Union ◽  
Margin Of Error ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Over Time

The inaugural address is the starting line of a four-year marathon, a bold declaration of ambitions outlined on the campaign trail looking to be crystallized into concrete policy. Presidents streamline their own national visions into a single, cohesive address and distill their proposals into rallying cries for the American people. But how does the subject matter of inaugural addresses predict or indicate with a presidential administration’s later priorities and accomplishments? This study seeks to investigate this question by performing a content analysis of a stratified random sample of presidents. It develops a coding scheme and creates 12 categories that presidents have and could discuss in their inaugural addresses. It analyzes each of the chosen presidents’ inaugural addresses and subsequent State of the Union addresses, identifying substantive policy issues and recording an approximate word count for each one. After calculating the word count for each category in all of the selected inaugural addresses and States of the Union, the categories and word counts will be ranked for each individual speech. The rankings will then be compared between the two with a one-ranking margin of error. All of this data seems to preliminarily indicate that issue replicability is increasing over time, but magnitude replicability is much more variable. Therefore, it can be concluded that inaugural addresses are not likely to contain substantive policy that will affect the priorities and accomplishments of a president’s administration.

scholarly journals Impact of Life Perspective on Students’ Psychological Readiness for Professional Activity as Psychologists in Education

2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (6) ◽  
pp. 96-106
Author(s):  
Y.N. Gut ◽  
M.Y. Khudaeva ◽  
M.K. Kabardov ◽  
E.A. Ovsyanikova ◽  
A.K. Bedanokova
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Study ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Educational System ◽  
Educational Psychology ◽  
Research University ◽  
Psychology Students ◽  
Professional Activity ◽  
Life Purpose ◽  
Pedagogical Institute ◽  
The Impact

This paper is aimed at studying the impact of life perspective on the formation of psychological readiness for professional activity in psychology students who have chosen to work in the educational system. We present materials of an empirical study obtained on a sample of 2—4-year students of the Faculty of Psychology of the Pedagogical Institute of the Belgorod State National Research University. The sample consisted of 80 undergraduate students of the Educational Psychology program, aged from 20 to 23 years, 56 females and 24 males. The following techniques were used: “Motivation for Professional Activity” (by K.Zamfir, modified by A.A.Rean), “Professional Readiness” (by A.P.Chernyavskaya), “The Method of Motivational Induction” (by J.Nütten, adapted by D.A.Leontiev) and “Life-Purpose Orientations Test” (by J.Crumbaugh, L.Maholik, adapted by D.A. Leontiev).The study showed that meaningful perception of life perspective determines the development of motivational, cognitive and emotional components of readiness for professional activity in psychology students.

scholarly journals Incoming Undergraduate Students Struggle to Accurately Evaluate Legitimacy of Online News

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-97
Author(s):  
Sarah Bartlett Schroeder
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Online News ◽  
News Item ◽  
Accurate Information ◽  
First Year ◽  
News Story ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Student Responses ◽  
Digital News

A Review of: Evanson, C., & Sponsel, J. (2019). From syndication to misinformation: How undergraduate students engage with and evaluate digital news. Communications in Information Literacy, 13(2), 228-250. https://doi.org/10.15760/comminfolit.2019.13.2.6 Abstract Objective – To determine how new undergraduate students access, share, and evaluate the credibility of digital news. Design – Asynchronous online survey and activity. Setting – A small private, liberal arts college in the southeastern United States of America. Subjects – Participants included 511 incoming first-year college students. Methods – Using the Moodle Learning Management System, incoming first-year students completed a mandatory questionnaire that included multiple choice, Likert scale, open-ended, and true/false questions related to news consumption. Two questions asked students to identify which news sources and social networking sites they have used recently, and the next two questions asked students to define fake news and rate the degree to which fake news impacts them personally and the degree to which it impacts society. The end of the survey presented students with screenshots of three news stories and asked them to reflect on how they would evaluate the claim in the story, their confidence level in the claim, and whether or not they would share this news item on social media. The three items chosen represent certain situations that commonly cause confusion for news consumers: (a) a heading that does not match the text of the article, (b) a syndicated news story, and (c) an impostor URL and fake news story. Researchers coded the student responses using both preset and emergent codes. Main Results – Eighty-two percent of students reported using at least one social media site to access political news in the previous seven days. Students reported believing that fake news is a worrying trend for society, with 86% labelling it either a “moderate” or “extreme” barrier to society’s ability to recognize accurate information. However, they expressed less concern about their own ability to navigate an information environment in which fake news is prevalent, with 51% agreeing that it has only somewhat of an effect on their own ability to effectively navigate digital information. Of the three news items presented to them, students expressed the least confidence (an average of 1.55/4) and least interest in sharing (12%) the first news item, in which the heading does not match the text. However, only 14% of respondents noted this mismatch. In evaluations of the second item, an AP news item on the Breitbart website, 35% of students noted the website on which the article was found, but fewer noted that the original source is the Associated Press. Student responses to the third article, a fake news item from a website masquerading as an NBC website, show that 37% of students believed the source to come from a legitimate NBC source. Only 7% of students recognized the unusual URL, and 24% of respondents indicated that they might share this news item on social media. Conclusion – The study finds that impostor URLs and syndicated news items might confuse students into misevaluating the information before them, and that librarians and other instructors should raise awareness of these tactics.

scholarly journals STUDENTS PERCEPTION ON IMPLEMENTATION OF INTERPROFESSIONAL EDUCATION

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 196
Author(s):  
Multazam Fahreza Chandra ◽  
Laila Isrona ◽  
Emilzon Taslim ◽  
Ilmiawati Ilmiawati
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Interprofessional Education ◽  
Sampling Method ◽  
Psychology Students ◽  
Interdisciplinary Education ◽  
First Year ◽  
Positive Perception ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Second Year ◽  
Improve Health

Background: Collaboration between health professionals is needed to improve health services. The collaboration can be applied to the education system through the Interprofessional Education (IPE) concept. This study aimed to examine students’ perception on the IPE implementation.Methods: This was a descriptive study using cross-sectional method. The study sample were 300 undergraduate students in Medical Faculty Andalas University (MFAU). It consisted of 190 medical students, 72 psychology students, and 38 midwifery students. The sample was determined by proportionate stratified random sampling method. The research instrument used was Interdisciplinary Education Perception Scale (IEPS) questionnaire.Results:     The    252    students    (84%)     showed    positive    perception    on    IPE implementation. The highest percentage (90%) of the component of perception was actual cooperation and the component of understanding of others’ profession had the lowest percentage (51%). Midwifery students had the highest percentage of perception (92.1%), while the lowest percentage of perception was showed by psychology students (72.2%). The perception tended to increase in perception from first-year (85.7%) to second-year (89.9%) and declined in third-year students (76%).Conclusion: Students of MFAU having a good perception on the IPE implementation. However, there is a lack of understanding of others’ profession that needs to be addressed and improved.                   

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