scholarly journals Development and Assessment of Key Skills in Undergraduate Students: An action-research experience

2012 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana Fernández-Santander ◽  
María José García-García ◽  
Beatriz Sáez-Pizarro ◽  
María José Terrón-López
Keyword(s):  
Action Research ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Employability Skills ◽  
Research Experience ◽  
Font Size ◽  
Education Students ◽  
University Teachers ◽  
Key Skills ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Development Assessment

<p><span style="color: black; line-height: 115%; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 11pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-themecolor: text1; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">Employers look for professionals able to work in a team, able to approach the problems, with the capacity to analyze and resolve problems, under the constant renewal of knowledge and competencies. In this paper, a group of University teachers from different areas of knowledge presents an experience to introduce key employability skills in the higher education students’ curricula. This work has been developed under the action research scope. The first goal was to make an analysis of terms referred to key skills, generating an integrated denomination for each competency. The elaboration of general templates for key skills is proposed here as a useful tool that provides information about development, assessment and marking of each skill. Different types of rubrics and assessment templates, used during this experience, are presented.</span></p>

scholarly journals Exploring participation in co-curricular activities among undergraduate students

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hilda Mary Mulrooney
Keyword(s):  
Intrinsic Motivation ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Academic Motivation ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Employability Skills ◽  
First Year ◽  
First Year Students ◽  
Academic Motivation Scale ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Motivation Scale

Co-curricular activities offer an opportunity for students to develop and demonstrate employability skills. Not all students take advantage of activities on offer, while others undertake multiple activities. In this study, second and third year students from two related undergraduate degree courses who had and had not taken up co-curricular activities identified their reasons for participating or not, and completed two questionnaires exploring their motivation (Academic Motivation Scale, AMS and Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire, MSLQ). First year students identified which activities they would be interested in participating in in future years, and why. Clear differences in participation between the two degree courses were seen, with significantly higher levels of intrinsic motivation among students who participated. Among those who did participate compared with those who did not, significant differences in different types of motivation were seen. Self-efficacy was also significantly higher in those who did, compared with those who did not, participate, although whether this is a cause or a consequence of participation is unclear. First year students indicated interest in a range of co-curricular activities, for personal as well as academic reasons. Further work is needed to ensure that all students understand the relevance and importance of co-curricular activities.Key words: co-curricular, real-life learning, employability skills

The Four Branches of the Mabinogi, ed. and trans. by Matthieu Boyd, with the modernization assistance of Stacie Lents. Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview Press, 2017, 119 pp., 5 b/w ill, 1 map.

Mediaevistik ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 401-401
Author(s):  
Albrecht Classen
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
English Translation ◽  
English Version ◽  
Personal Names ◽  
University Teachers ◽  
Link Type ◽  
Welsh Literature

Welsh medievalists have long recognized the canonical quality of The Four Branches of the Mabinogi (late eleventh or early twelfth century), resulting in a long series of editions and translations. William Owen Pughe was the first to offer a modern English translation in 1795. The <?page nr="402"?>recent translation by Will Parker (2005) is available now online at: <ext-link ext-link-type="uri" xlink:href="http://www.mabinogi.net/translations.htm">http://www.mabinogi.net/translations.htm</ext-link>, and I suspect that many university teachers happily rely on this one because of its easy accessibility and clarity of the English version. Now, Matthieu Boyd, who teaches at Fairleigh Dickinson University (Florham Campus, Madison, MD), offers a new rendering, which is specifically targeting undergraduate students. This explains his strategy to modernize the medieval Welsh as much as possible, and to turn this marvelous text into an enjoyable read even for contemporary students, without moving too far away from the original. This modernization was carried out with the assistance of his colleague, the playwright Stacie Lents. This entails, for instance, that even some of the medieval names are adapted. Many times the conservative reader might feel uncomfortable when words and phrases such as “to shit,” “to egg on,” “to nip at the heels,” or “Manawydan & Co” (60–61) appear. The adaptation of personal names is not carried out systematically, but the overall impression of this translation is certainly positive, making the study of this masterpiece of medieval Welsh literature to a real pleasure.

scholarly journals The Impact of Embedded iPad Use on Student Perceptions of Their Digital Capabilities

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matt Elphick
Keyword(s):  
Student Perceptions ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Student Body ◽  
Learning And Teaching ◽  
Digital World ◽  
Key Skills ◽  
The University ◽  
Teaching In Higher Education ◽  
The Impact

Digital capabilities are recognized as key skills that students must possess to learn and work in our increasingly digital world and have been the subject of a growing focus over recent years. Similarly, smartphones and, to a lesser degree, tablets are now ubiquitous within the student body, and many academics are beginning to leverage these devices for the purposes of learning and teaching in higher education. To further explore the possibilities of mobile technology, the iPilot project was created to explore the effects that embedded iPad use had on undergraduate students’ creativity, ability to collaborate with their peers and their perception of their digital capabilities. Focusing on the digital capabilities aspect of the project, this paper explores the results gathered. While the results are mixed, when combined with data taken from the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) Digital Experience Tracker, it does appear that using iPads in the university classroom can have a positive impact on certain digital behaviors and students’ perceptions of their digital skills.

scholarly journals Routes to Research for Novice Undergraduate Neuroscientists

2006 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-187 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyle J. Frantz ◽  
Robert L. DeHaan ◽  
Melissa K. Demetrikopoulos ◽  
Laura L. Carruth
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Attitudes Toward Science ◽  
Laboratory Research ◽  
Research Experience ◽  
Neuroscience Research ◽  
Long Term Follow Up ◽  
Apprenticeship Model ◽  
Design Experiments

Undergraduate students may be attracted to science and retained in science by engaging in laboratory research. Experience as an apprentice in a scientist's laboratory can be effective in this regard, but the pool of willing scientists is sometimes limited and sustained contact between students and faculty is sometimes minimal. We report outcomes from two different models of a summer neuroscience research program: an Apprenticeship Model (AM) in which individual students joined established research laboratories, and a Collaborative Learning Model (CLM) in which teams of students worked through a guided curriculum and then conducted independent experimentation. Assessed outcomes included attitudes toward science, attitudes toward neuroscience, confidence with neuroscience concepts, and confidence with science skills, measured via pre-, mid-, and postprogram surveys. Both models elevated attitudes toward neuroscience, confidence with neuroscience concepts, and confidence with science skills, but neither model altered attitudes toward science. Consistent with the CLM design emphasizing independent experimentation, only CLM participants reported elevated ability to design experiments. The present data comprise the first of five yearly analyses on this cohort of participants; long-term follow-up will determine whether the two program models are equally effective routes to research or other science-related careers for novice undergraduate neuroscientists.

Three-Year Study of the Impact of a Research Experience Program in Aerospace Engineering on Undergraduate Students

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 23-32
Author(s):  
Jacques C. Richard ◽  
So Yoon Yoon
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Career Paths ◽  
Research University ◽  
Aerospace Engineering ◽  
Research Experience ◽  
Research Knowledge ◽  
Research Experiences ◽  
Public Research University ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Engineering Career

This study reports results from a three-year implementation of a Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program funded by the National Science Foundation in aerospace engineering at a public research university in the southwestern United States. Students’ perceptions of research knowledge, skills, and engineering career paths were all positively affected.

scholarly journals Finding Research Topic and Its Effect on Research Learners’ Motivation: An Action Research

2020 ◽  
pp. 36-47
Author(s):  
Jigme Dorji
Keyword(s):  
Action Research ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Learning Experience ◽  
Intervention Strategies ◽  
Research Topic ◽  
Methods Course ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Post Intervention ◽  
Language And Culture ◽  
Interest And Motivation

This paper reports the findings from an action research on effect of teaching how to find research topic to the undergraduate students’ interest and motivation in learning research. The action research employing mixed methods approach was conducted on 95 first year Bachelor of Bhutan and Himalayan Studies (BHS) students taking research methods course at the College of Language and Culture Studies, Royal University of Bhutan. Baseline data were collected using self-developed questionnaire (N=95), focus group interview (N=6) and four experts’ rating on students’ research topics. Intervention strategies to find research topic were adapted from Bui [1] and Lester and Lester Jr.’s [2] framework and implemented to enable students to speculate, frame and evaluate their research topic. After three weeks of intervention, a post-intervention data were collected employing same procedures and tools as the pre-survey data were collected. Further, to validate the findings, researcher added field notes from the observation during implementing the intervention. Findings showed that intervention strategies have made an impact on students’ ability to find research topic, which in turn indicated that students interest and motivation towards research learning augmented. Recommendations to fortify students’ research learning experience and need for future research are also provided. 

scholarly journals Early year undergraduate researchers’ reflections on the values and perceived costs of their research experience

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gaye D. Ceyhan ◽  
John W. Tillotson
Keyword(s):  
Achievement Motivation ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Undergraduate Research ◽  
Intrinsic Value ◽  
Value Theory ◽  
Research Experience ◽  
Expectancy Value ◽  
Research Experiences ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
Future Work

Abstract Background Prior research reported that motivational beliefs that individuals attach to specific tasks predict continuing interest and persistence in the task. A motivational approach may be particularly useful for understanding undergraduate students’ engagement with research in their first and second years in college. The current study utilizes the expectancy-value theory of achievement motivation to qualitatively explore how much and in what ways early year undergraduate researchers value their research experience and what kinds of costs they associate with it. Results The results revealed that intrinsic value had the highest expression in participants’ motivation to engage in research. The second most expressed value type was the utility value of undergraduate research with regards to obtaining the desired outcomes, and attainment value played the least important role in participants’ motivation to engage in research. Findings also indicated that some of the participants associated a cost(s) to their research experience. The highest mentioned perceived cost was opportunity cost, where participants commented on losing other valued alternatives when engaging in research. Participants commented on the time, effort, or amount of work needed to engage in research, and a few participants commented on the emotional cost associated with their research experience in terms of the fear of failure. Conclusion As perceived cost is the least studied in the expectancy-value framework, this study contributes to cost values within college students, particularly about early year undergraduate researchers. The findings of this study can form the basis for future work on exploring ways to increase the values and decrease the costs students experience in their undergraduate research experiences.

scholarly journals Student music stimuli composition in a scaffolded course-based undergraduate research experience

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-32
Author(s):  
Abbey L. Dvorak ◽  
Eugenia Hernandez-Ruiz ◽  
Halle Nick ◽  
Ruowen Qi ◽  
Celeste Alderete ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Music Education ◽  
Music Therapy ◽  
Undergraduate Research ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Teaching Model ◽  
Research Experience ◽  
Education Students ◽  
Research Experiences ◽  
Graduate Assistants ◽  
Undergraduate Research Experiences

Course-based undergraduate research experiences (CURE) allow students opportunities to develop research skills. In a scaffolded CURE, music therapy and music education students composed, evaluated, and selected the music stimuli used in a music and mindfulness study with non-musicians at Site 1 and musicians at Site 2. The purposes of this paper are to (a) describe the process of student music stimuli composition and evaluation for use in a course-based undergraduate research experience and (b) identify benefits, challenges, and lessons learned from the viewpoints of students, graduate assistants, and faculty who participated in the multi-site study. Eight students, two graduate assistants, and two faculty provide an overview of the CURE teaching model and assignments, and share first-person accounts of their experiences participating in this CURE.  

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