scholarly journals Undergraduate Students’ Research and Information Skills Continue to Change in their Second Year

2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 116
Author(s):  
Kimberly Miller

A Review of: Hulseberg, A., & Twait, M. (2016). Sophomores speaking: An exploratory study of student research practices. College & Undergraduate Libraries, 23(2), 130-150. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10691316.2014.981907 Abstract Objective – To understand sophomore undergraduate students’ research practices. Design – Mixed methods online survey and participant interviews. Setting – A small liberal arts college in the Midwestern United States of America. Subjects – The sample consisted of 660 second-year students; 139 students responded to the survey (21% response rate). In-depth interviews were conducted with 13 of the 139 survey respondents. Methods – A 13-item survey was emailed to sophomore students during October 2012. To analyze the results, the authors and a library student intern developed a coding scheme to apply to open-ended survey questions. Survey respondents could also volunteer for in-depth interviews. A total of 50 survey respondents volunteered, and 14 were invited for in-depth interviews between December 2012 and January 2013. The interview protocol included open-ended questions about students’ research experiences. Students were also asked to identify and discuss one recent research project. Interviews were audio and video recorded; data from one interview was lost due to technology failure, resulting in data analysis of 13 interviews. Interview transcripts were coded by an anthropology doctoral student, the study authors, and a library student assistant. Main Results – The survey found that students completed fewer research projects and used fewer library resources as sophomores than they did as first-year students. For example, only 4.9% (n=7) of students reported completing zero research assignments in their first year, compared with 34.5% (n=48) in their second year. When asked if there were library resources or skills they wanted to know about sooner in their academic career, students’ top reply was “Nothing” (34.5%, n=48), followed by “Navigating the physical space” (15.8%, n=22), “Librarians/staff & reference desk” (11.5%, n=16), and “Effective searching & evaluating sources” (10.8%, n=15). Male and female students’ responses differed, with male students less likely overall to express interest in library resources. While 42.4% (n=59) of students replied that they would consult with a librarian for help with their research projects, this option ranked third after professors (83.5%, n=116) and peers (70.5%, n=98). Again, responses varied by gender, with female students (49.5%, n=49) more likely than male students (26.3%, n=10) to contact a librarian about a research project. Most interview participants replied that searching online, including library resources, was their research starting point. Students most often selected research topics, based on their interest, from a professor-approved list. Students identified “relevant content, familiarity . . . , and credibility” (p. 138) as important source evaluation characteristics. The majority of students also used library information sources in their research, including databases, research guides, and the catalogue. Students most often mentioned struggling with “finding sources/identifying keywords” (n=6) and “finding known items” (n=6). Unlike survey respondents, interview participants unanimously reported consulting with a librarian. Most students (n=11) received library instruction as first-year students, and some suggested that this instruction helped them feel comfortable asking for help. Finally, most students felt that their research habits improved from their first year to their second year, specifically with regards to “their research technique, improved confidence . . . and an expanded source horizon” (p. 143). Conclusion – The authors recommend continuing strong information literacy support to first-year students, as well as working with faculty members and other campus partners to promote reference services to sophomores. When compared to previous research, the current study reports a higher percentage of students seeking librarian assistance; however, because some students also reported confusion about when and how to ask for help, further analysis could explore how reference librarians capitalize on peer and faculty “referral networks” (p. 145). Finding that students face significant challenges early in the research process was consistent with previous research, and future study might reveal more about this specific phenomenon in sophomores. Interviews should also be extended to include students who are non-library users. Finally, the authors suggest that the findings provide no evidence of a “sophomore information literacy slump” (p. 146).

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. JMECD.S29926
Author(s):  
Emad Nosair ◽  
Zein Mirghani ◽  
Randa M. Mostafa

Background Students' perception of their educational environment has a significant impact on their behavior and academic progress. The recent worldwide usage of innovative problem-based learning (PBL) medical programs requires major changes in medical schools and their environments. Therefore, measuring students' perceptions of the complex PBL environment has become a critical necessity as a determinant of students' academic success and as a part of attaining the quality standards of education. Ours being a new medical college employing the PBL curriculum, it was important to measure the students' perception of the educational environment in order to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the curriculum and to plan for any future improvements. Aim and Objectives The aim of this study was to evaluate students' perceptions in the preclinical phase of the PBL educational environment in the College of Medicine, Sharjah Medical College, United Arab Emirates, and to recommend remedial procedures. Material and Methods In this cross-sectional study, the English version of the Dundee Ready Education Environment Measure (DREEM) inventory was submitted to 250 students in years 1, 2, and 3. The data were analyzed using the SPSS 20 software, and significance was taken at P ≤ 0.05. The survey was performed in a mid-semester week, ie, in March 2014. No ethical issues were encountered during the process of this study. Results Two-hundred and fifty students responded to the questionnaire (100% response rate). The overall DREEM score was 113.4/200 (56.7%). First-year students expressed higher overall significant level of perception (119.4/200) than second-year (107.4/200) and third-year (112.7/200) students. In addition, first-year students perceived their learning, teaching, and academic climates as more significant than the other two batches. The scores obtained in the five domains were as follows; 28/48 in perception of learning, 26/44 in perception of teaching, 18/32 in academic self-perceptions, 27/48 in perceptions of atmosphere, and 15/28 in social self-perceptions. First-year students achieved the highest score (18.7/32) in the academic self-perception, and second-year students achieved the lowest (16.5/32). The total score was significantly higher in female students than in male students (115.9 vs 108.1). Conclusions The present study revealed that the PBL environment is generally perceived positively by our medical students. Female students exhibited higher perception than male students. Nevertheless, areas such as curriculum overload and inadequate student support still require further fine-tuning and remedial measures.


Author(s):  
Sandra Abegglen ◽  
Tom Burns ◽  
Sandra Sinfield

This paper explores how to facilitate the ‘bedding in’ and ‘becoming of’ undergraduate students who come from non-traditional backgrounds and struggle with what is, for them, the often alien world of academic writing and assessment.  To achieve their aims, the authors set up a partnership between the students of a second-year Peer Mentoring module and those of a first-year Becoming an Educationalist one.  By means of this creative partnering, and via reflective blog entries, they worked to harness quasi-academic writing to help such first-year students to become familiar with, and powerful within, the exclusionary practices (in particular, the written conventions of academic essays) of Higher Education.  They argue that this innovative ‘teaming-up’ of second- and first-year students not only models collaborative learning and writing practice, but also facilitates the ‘bedding-in’ of newcomers.  The paper itself models the partnership and creative writing methods used to help students find their ‘voice’ by being ‘co-produced’ by the people teaching across the two modules concerned.


2018 ◽  
Vol 23 (6) ◽  
pp. 97-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
T.S. Tikhomirova ◽  
N.V. Kochetkov

This article aims to study the relationship between personal reflection and the intensity of motivation for learning in a university.In order to achieve this goal, the following techniques were employed: A.V.Karpov and V.V.Ponomaryova’s technique for identifying the individual level of reflectivity, and T.I.Ilyina’s technique for assessing learning motivation in university students.The empirical study involved 143 subjects.The obtained data indicate that for the first-year students the meaning of the ‘mastering the profession’ motive is directly connected with their reflections on the present and future activities, while the meaning of the ‘getting a diploma’ motive is inversely correlated with the reflection of communication.In the second year, the intensity of the ‘gaining knowledge’ motive correlates with the reflection of communication, and the meaning of the ‘mastering the profession’ motive has an inverse relationship with the reflection of future activity.In the third year, the values of the motive for acquiring knowledge correlate with the integral indicator of reflection, whereas in the fourth year none of the reflection components are interconnected with the components of the motivation for learning in the university.


2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 52
Author(s):  
Helmiyadi Helmiyadi ◽  
Nurul Kamaliah

The aimed of the research was to find out the errors which were commonly made by the students of Sekolah Menengah Kejuruan Swasta Bustanul Yatama Syamtalira Bayu in their writing narrative text and to find out the causes of errors in their writing narrative text. This research useds a qualitative and quantitative approach. The population of this research was all the students of the Second year students of Sekolah Menengah Kejuruan Swasta Bustanul Yatama Syamtalira Bayu in academic year 2020/2021 consisted of 120 students and divided into 56 male students and 64 female students. The sample of this research selected by using random sampling technique by using lottery. In this study, only 20 students and one English teacher involved as the sample. The researcher use two kinds of instruments, they are test and interview. In analyzing the data, the writer used a percentage formula from Sudjana. Result of the research from test most of the first year students of Sekolah Menengah Kejuruan Swasta Bustanul Yatama Syamtalira Bayu made many errors in grammatical aspects in writing, a high percentage of errors was found in one out of three categories. The highest error category was tense errors. Moreover, the students felt difficult in getting ideas to begin free writing. The causes of errors were made by the students because of lack of interactive facilities is one of the problems to develop interactive classroom activities. Based on this reasoning, it can be concluded that many of the students made errors because of interlingual and intralingual transfer.


2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 92
Author(s):  
Tatiana Pashkova-Balkenhol ◽  
Mark Lenker ◽  
Emily Cox ◽  
Elizabeth Kocevar-Weidinger

This mixed method systematic review considers recent literature on the information literacy (IL) skills of first-year undergraduate students. The review uncovers the following themes: faculty and librarians perceive first-year students as lacking IL skills; students have varying perceptions of their IL skills; assessment studies yield conflicting findings on first-year students' IL; communication between high school and college librarians is challenging; and some IL researchers emphasise and leverage first-year students' prior knowledge and experience in IL instruction. These themes emerge from extensive searches in four research databases for scholarly and professional articles written in English within the past ten years. With the exception of a few articles, studies reviewed consistently express their findings in terms of students’ gaps or deficits. We question whether this is the most productive basis for developing effective IL programs. Instead, we call for further investigation of students’ existing knowledge and skills as a basis for implementing constructivist and strengths-based pedagogies.


Nutrients ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 1599
Author(s):  
Vilma Kriaucioniene ◽  
Asta Raskiliene ◽  
Dalius Petrauskas ◽  
Janina Petkeviciene

Students’ transition from high school to university is accompanied by lifestyle changes. This study aimed to assess trends in students’ body weight status, perception, management practices and eating habits from 2000 to 2017. Three cross-sectional surveys were carried out among the first-year students of five Kaunas (Lithuania) universities in 2000, 2010 and 2017. The self-administered questionnaires were filled in during lectures. Altogether, 3275 students aged 20.0 (1.5) years participated in the survey. The prevalence of self-reported overweight increased among male students from 11.3% in 2000 to 24.3% in 2017 and female students from 5.2 to 9.6%. The intake frequency of fruits, vegetables and cereals increased, and red meat decreased. At a normal BMI, more female than male students perceived themselves as being ‘too fat’ (19.4% and 8.8% in 2017), while more male than female students perceived themselves as being ‘too thin’ (37.2% and 4.5% in 2017). More females than males were dissatisfied with their weight, worried about gaining weight and tried to lose weight. Weight-management practices were associated with body weight, self-perception, dissatisfaction, worries about weight gain and eating behaviours. Our study highlights the need for interventions to increase the accuracy of weight perception and to promote the appropriate weight-management methods, addressing gender differences.


Author(s):  
Etika Rachmawati ◽  
Rita Apollonia ◽  
Imelda Ratna Meila

This study was aimed to investigate the students’ perception and the teacher’s way to teach popular song to improve students’ vocabulary mastery. The sample of the study was 32 first year students in Vocasional higt school.A qualitative case study was employed, the data were obtained through the observation and questionnaire. Then, the data from the observations were analyzed by transcribing the whole of the activity in classroom and data from questionnaire were presented into percentage. The researcher described the data of the observation qualitatively. In the present study, the researcher proposed three research questions: (1) How does the teacher use popular song to improve students’ vocabulary mastery at English club? (2) What are male students’ perceptions on the use of popular song to improve students’ vocabulary mastery? And (3) What are female students’ perceptions on the use of popular song to improve students’ vocabulary mastery?  In responding to the first research question, it was found that the teacher  used audio technique such as music in teaching vocabulary. Furthermore, the result of second and third research question found that male and female students agreed that popular song could improve students’ vocabulary mastery, it can be seen from the questionnaire. It showed that students got new vocabularies after listening,  learning and reading popular song because it had many new vocabularies and easy to understand. Based on the conclusion, this study suggests that the teachers who teach English, teaching English need various technique, method, and approach that have to apply in teaching learning process in order to give new atmosphere for the students. Using popular song as one of the solution to solve that problem has to be developed by the teachers because there are some activities that could make teaching learning English more fun and enjoyable especially in improving students’ vocabulary mastery because it is rich with vocabularies. Furthermore, the students have to learn deeply about the component of English and learning vocabulary in order to make them mastering English.


2010 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 212-216 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lester Caudill ◽  
April Hill ◽  
Kathy Hoke ◽  
Ovidiu Lipan

Funded by innovative programs at the National Science Foundation and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of Richmond faculty in biology, chemistry, mathematics, physics, and computer science teamed up to offer first- and second-year students the opportunity to contribute to vibrant, interdisciplinary research projects. The result was not only good science but also good science that motivated and informed course development. Here, we describe four recent undergraduate research projects involving students and faculty in biology, physics, mathematics, and computer science and how each contributed in significant ways to the conception and implementation of our new Integrated Quantitative Science course, a course for first-year students that integrates the material in the first course of the major in each of biology, chemistry, mathematics, computer science, and physics.


2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 55-61
Author(s):  
S. Chernenko ◽  
Zn. Malakhova ◽  
V. Timoshenko ◽  
L. Budyak

The objective is to determine the peculiarities of developing motor skills in the first-third-year students.Materials & methods: the participants in the study were male students of the first year (n = 32), second year (n = 32), and third year (n = 32) of training. To achieve the tasks set, the study relied on the following research methods: analysis of scientific literature, pedagogical testing, pedagogical observation and experiment. The study used the methods of mathematical planning of a complete factorial experiment to obtain a mathematical model of training modes.Results: the increase in the number of sets to twelve times, the number of repetitions in each set – to three times, and the rest interval – to 60 seconds positively impact the effectiveness of the first-third-year students’ training. The choice of training modes depends on the number of repetitions in a set for the first-year students; reduction in the rest interval to 60 seconds for the second-year students; the relation between the number of sets and the number of repetitions in a set for the third-year students.Conclusions: The 23-type experiment made it possible to study the multi-factorial structure of training modes of teaching technical elements to the first-third-year students; to specify the optimal relation between the number of sets, the number of repetitions in a set and rest intervals at the stage of teaching to serve a direct volleyball overhand.  


2018 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 145-156
Author(s):  
Tasha A. Narain ◽  
Heather Stuart ◽  
Terry Krupa ◽  
Sherry Stewart ◽  
Keith Dobson

The social norms approach to changing excessive drinking behaviour is predicated upon findings that overestimations of peer drinking predict one’s own drinking behaviour. Prior studies have yet to examine whether such social norms effects pertain equally to both genders. First-year students from a Canadian university (N = 1,155; 696 males, 459 females) were assessed for the relationship between misperceived drinking norms and hazardous drinking using the Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test-Consumption scale (AUDIT-C). A significant positive relationship between the overestimated drinking frequency norm and hazardous drinking was determined for female students, where the odds of hazardous drinking increased by 1.92 (95% CI: 1.32–2.79) when the norm of other female students was overestimated. A non-significant association was found for male students, where the odds of hazardous drinking were unrelated to overestimation of the drinking norm of other male students. The null association for male students highlights a potential problem when using social norms interventions for alcohol reduction for males in the university context. Implications of these results for the utilization of the social norms approach to alcohol reduction are discussed.


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