scholarly journals The impact of the mathematics support centre on the grades of first year students at the National University of Ireland Maynooth

Author(s):  
C. M. a. Bhaird ◽  
T. Morgan ◽  
A. O'Shea
2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Svitlana Kiyko ◽  
Yuriy Kiyko ◽  
Viktor Drebet

The article is dedicated to the study of strategies for determining the gender of nouns of the German language by Ukrainian-speaking first-year-students at the Yuriy Fedkovych National University of Chernivtsi, Ukraine. The purpose of the study is to establish the strategies for determining the gender of nouns on the basis of phonetic, morphological, and semantic criteria and experimentally trace the impact of interlingual and intralingual interference in the process of gender categorization of nouns. The material of the study included 60 nouns, out of which 30 were phonetic equivalents and 30 – semantic ones. Each group contained 10 nouns of the masculine, feminine and neuter gender respectively, with the same number of structurally different nouns among them, which were selected according to semantic, morphological, and phonetic rules of gender identification. To identify strategies for determining the gender of German nouns, two psycholinguistic experiments were held with a month interval. The experiments involved 30 first-year-students at the University of Chernivtsi (German department), who had to decide whether the noun gender specified in DMDX program is correct. Thus, the article in half of the given nouns was set incorrectly in the program. The obtained results indicate that the gender of the noun of the native language significantly affects gender determining of the German phonetic equivalent (85% of all mistakes in determining the gender in Experiment 1 and 47% – in Experiment 2). The students also focus on the suffixes or endings of German nouns when choosing the correct gender. Phonetic or semantic rules for determining gender play a secondary role. The gender of a noun in the native language prevents the correct choice of the gender in the German language, which is twice as often recorded for phonetic equivalents.


Author(s):  
Stacey Scriver ◽  
Amber Walsh Olesen ◽  
Eoghan Clifford

This paper evaluates the pilot year of the CÉIM PAL initiative at the National University of Ireland Galway through analysis of examination results, student surveys and the reflections of two students who participated as first year students in the pilot year and subsequently as student leaders in year two. The paper considers the impact of attendance at sessions on academic performance, student satisfaction with the programme, and evaluates the extent to which the initiative has assisted students to become more empowered learners as expressed through the development of self-directed learning, growth in educational self-efficacy, and confidence in navigating the learning environment. Recommendations are also made for developing the CÉIM initiative, which may be relevant to other PAL programmes and for determining the direction of future research.


Author(s):  
Diarmaid Lane ◽  
Sheryl Sorby

AbstractIn recent years, there has been a surge in research in spatial thinking across the international community. We now know that spatial skills are malleable and that they are linked to success across multiple disciplines, most notably Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). While spatial skills have been examined by cognitive scientists in laboratory environments for decades, current research is examining how these skills can be developed in field-based environments. In this paper, we present findings from a study within a Technology Teacher preparation programme where we examined first-year students’ spatial skills on entry to university. We explain why it was necessary to embed a spatial skills intervention into Year 1 of the programme and we describe the impact that this had on students’ spatial scores and on academic performance. The findings from our study highlight a consistent gender gap in spatial scores at the start of the first-year with female students entering the Technology Teacher preparation programme at a lower base level than male students. We describe how we integrated spatial development activities into an existing course and how an improvement in spatial scores and overall course performance was observed. The paper concludes by discussing the long-term sustainability of integrating spatial interventions within teacher preparation programmes while also highlighting the importance of future research to examine spatial skills as a fundamental component of technological capability.


Author(s):  
Sri Ariani ◽  
Tri Setianingsih

This research aims to find out Is there any significant differences between the impact of traditional teaching method and using Index Card Match in teaching English vocabulary at the First Year Students of SMA HANG TUAH 3 MATARAM and to find out does using Index Card Match have a positive effect on students’ vocabulary knowledge. The sample of this research is 40 students. The kind of this research is experimental research. The students are divided into two groups such as experimental group and control group. Then the research subjects are pre-tested to know their prior vocabulary mastery. After the treatment, the sample is post-tested to know their recent vocabulary mastery as the result of the treatment. The scores in both pre-test and post-test are taken as the main data of the research. The data is analyzed by using t-test.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 323-339
Author(s):  
Natalia Yevheniivna Dmitrenko ◽  
Iuliia Oleksiivna Budas

The present paper provides the results of the feedback influence on students’ autonomous ESP learning. It is aimed to study the impact of feedback on autonomous learning outcomes of first-year students, who are studying a two-year university course of “English for Specific Purposes (ESP)”, the significant part of which is dedicated to self-regulated learning. The aim of the course is to improve the students’ proficiency in professionally oriented English communication to the level of B2 according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). The investigation has proved the importance of teachers’ support in students’ autonomous ESP learning. The outcomes of those students who received the feedback regularly signify that even being self-sufficient, students strive for teachers’ or peer observation and feedback in the educational process. In the article, the interdependence between the level of students’ autonomous ESP learning competence and students’ feedback literacy is presented. The results of the study suggest that students’ autonomous ESP learning outcomes are considerably influenced by supportive external written feedback if it is sought, and their feedback literacy level is at least moderate or higher. A higher level of students’ feedback literacy is observed among students with a more advanced level of autonomous ESP learning competence and who demonstrate better academic achievements in professionally oriented English communication. The coherence of the elaborated levels of Ukrainian students’ feedback literacy and the ways of its enhancing can be significant for educators in other countries.


Author(s):  
Jasbir Karneil Singh ◽  
Ben K. Daniel

Expressing an authoritative voice is an essential part of academic writing at university. However, the performance of the authorial self in writing is complex yet fundamental to academic success as a large part of academic assessment involves writing to the academy. More specifically, the performance of the authorial self can be complex for English as a Second Language (ESL) student-writers. This research investigated the extent to which ESL first-year students at the Fiji National University perform their authorial voice using interactional metadiscourse in their academic writing. The study employed a quantitative analysis of corpus produced by 16 Fijian ESL undergraduate students enrolled in an EAP course. The research found that the ESL authorial voice was predominantly expressed through boosters and attitude markers, with relatively little usage of other interactional metadiscoursal elements such as hedges, engagement markers and self-mentions. Further, the research showed that this particular cohort expressed their authorial voice and identity through boosted arguments and avoiding language that directly mentions the authorial self. The study concludes that the ESL authorial self for this cohort manifests itself in a selected range of selected interactional metadiscoursal elements, requiring the need to raise the awareness of self-reflective expressions for ESL students. The study also encourages further exploration of ESL authorial identity construction in academic writing at undergraduate level and beyond.


Author(s):  
Ala' Ibraheem Yousef

This study aims at recognizing the level of social and psychological adaptation and its connection with the students of An-Najah National University in Nablus governorate in light of the background variables. Also, it seeks to clarify the correlational relations between social, psychological and academic adaptation and identity ranks. In order to achieve the aims of the study, a sample of (280) students from An-Najah National University is chosen. The consistency and validity of the tools of the study are verified. Results have shown their validity as it follows the correlational and descriptive methods. The following are the results of the study: 1- There are positive statistical relations between psychological and social adaptation and identity ranks of stopping, closure and dispersion. However, there isn’t any statistical relation between identity achievement and social and psychological adaptation. 2- There are statistical differences in the ranks of identity of the variable of scholastic year or place of residence or economic level. Besides, there are statistical differences in the averages of identity stopping and closure due to the variable of scholastic year. 3- There are differences in the average of stopping identity in the first year and the second, third and fourth year students in favor of the first year students. The source of the differences in the average of identity closure is between the first year students and the second and third year students in favor of the first year students. 4- There are statistical differences in the averages of achieving closure identity due to place of residence that the differences in the averages of achieving identity among camp citizens in the cities and villages in favor of camps citizens due to closing their identity between the citizens of the cities and villages in favor of the dwellers of the village. 5- There are statistical differences in the averages in the ranks of identity due to the economic level. Also, there are statistical differences among the averages of the social and psychological adaptation due to the variable of the scholastic year that they are between the first year students and the second and third year students in favor of the first year students. 6- All the hypotheses of the study are refuted except for two, namely: there are statistical differences in the rank of identity due to the variables of scholastic year and place of residence. The second is that there are statistical differences in the social and psychological adaptation due to the variable of scholastic year. In light of these results, the researcher recommends offering guidance programs highlighting ranks of the identity of students for its positive and effective impact in achieving their goals and changing their course of life by achieving their psychological, social and academic adaptation.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document