scholarly journals Student Affairs and Services during Covid‑19 in Africa: Mitigating the Pandemic’s Impact on Student Success

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Birgit Schreiber ◽  
Thierry M. Luescher ◽  
Brett Perozzi ◽  
Lisa Bardill Moscaritolo

The Covid‑19 pandemic has highlighted the challenges that present obstacles to equitable learning and development in higher education in various parts of the world. African higher education and Student Affairs and Services (SAS) are faced with a set of challenges that are in part related to the resources within the institutions and in part due the sociocultural context into which the institutions are embedded. It is with this background that this study explores the impact of Covid‑19 on SAS in Africa, as part of a wider lens on SAS across the globe. The study was conducted with an online survey which generated 781 responses of Student Affairs practitioners from across the globe, of which 118 were from the African continent. The data show SAS’s critical role in mediating the various domains within and beyond the higher education institution that impact on student success. The domains that impact on student success include the students’ personal experiences, the public domain, the sociocultural community and familial milieu, and the institutional/ SAS domain. Thus, this article discusses SAS’s critical role in mediating the impact of these four domains on the student living and learning experience. The purpose of this article is to discuss the data and to use the data to gain insights into the way SAS has played a role in mitigating the impacts of Covid‑19 in four domains relevant for student success. Based on our findings, a systemic-contextual model is proposed that illustrates the relevance of four domains that need to synergise for students to be successful. Our data suggests that while SAS and universities do a great deal to support students in their learning, factors in the public domain, factors in the sociocultural community and familial milieu need to be conducive to learning to enable more student success in Africa.

2012 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Javed Nayyar Malik ◽  
Rosli Bin Mahmood

This paper develops a conceptual model of public sector corporate entrepreneurship for the state government higher education institutions. The proposed model is intended to depict the main antecedents that relate to corporate entrepreneurship within the public sector higher education institution  and the impact of corporate entrepreneurship on public sector HEI’s performance, as well as factors influencing its continuous performance.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 370-383
Author(s):  
Ladan Ghazi-Saidi ◽  
Aliisa Criffield ◽  
Carrie L. Kracl ◽  
Miechelle McKelvey ◽  
Sharon N. Obasi ◽  
...  

In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, our institution, like others in higher education, suspended face- to-face classes and offered remote learning as an alternative.  We report five cases of undergraduate and graduate courses that transitioned from a face-to-face to a remote mode. Each case will provide a detailed description of how the course was moved to an online mode, how the course was managed, the instructors’ previous experience in online teaching, their self-reflection on the process of transitioning to remote learning and their recommendations for a more successful experience in a similar potential scenario in the future.  Further, we report the students’ perspectives based on their responses to an online survey.  The combined results of the cases reported in this study reflect the resilience on both sides. A sudden shutdown of the university along with disease- related fears caused anxiety both for the students and instructors regardless of previous experience in online education. However, having online material pre-pandemic, possessing the technical skills, and previous online teaching or learning experience as well as having the infrastructure in place, facilitated the smooth navigation of the courses. The mode of delivery of the course (synchronous, asynchronous or blended) did not have an effect on students’ satisfaction.


Societies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 71
Author(s):  
Ourania Tzoraki ◽  
Svetlana Dimitrova ◽  
Marin Barzakov ◽  
Saad Yaseen ◽  
Vasilis Gavalas ◽  
...  

The ongoing ‘refugee crisis’ of the past years has led to the migration of refugee researchers (RRs) to European countries. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, RRs often had to work from home and/or to continue their social, cultural and economic integration process under new conditions. An online survey carried out to explore the impact of the pandemic on the refugee researchers showed that RRs found it difficult to adapt their everyday working life to the ‘home’ setting. The majority have had neither a suitable work environment at home nor the appropriate technology. Although they stated that they are rather pleased with the measures taken by the public authorities, they expressed concern about their vulnerability due to their precarious contracts and the bureaucratic asylum procedures, as the pandemic has had a negative impact on these major issues. The majority of RRs working in academia seem not to have been affected at all as far as their income is concerned, while the majority of those employed in other sectors became unemployed during the pandemic (58%). Recommendations are provided to the public authorities and policy makers to assist RRs to mitigate the consequences of the pandemic on their life.


2020 ◽  
pp. 237337992097842
Author(s):  
Rimante Ronto ◽  
Alexandra Bhatti ◽  
Josephine Chau

Twitter has gained attention in recent years as a tool to use in higher education to enhance students’ learning, engagement, and reflective writing. This study explored public health students’ perceptions on the usefulness of Twitter as a learning tool, engagement with their peers, staff, and the broader public health community. Participants were Master of Public Health students from a public university based in Sydney, Australia. A mixed methods approach was used combining content analysis of tweets, an online survey and two focus groups. Students were asked to engage with Twitter by reflecting on each week’s teaching content and by liking and replying to their peers’ tweets. Participation and engagement in this task were high initially and declined toward the end of semester. Most student tweets aligned with topics taught during the semester. Survey and focus group data indicated most students had positive views on using Twitter and reported finding engagement with Twitter beneficial in obtaining current information on health promotion news and trends, increasing their professional networks and allowing them to connect with their peers and teaching staff. Results indicate Twitter is a promising interactive approach to enhance public health students’ engagement and overall learning experience, as well as being useful for professional networking. Larger scale empirical studies are needed to investigate the impact of the use of social media platforms such as Twitter to various learning outcomes longitudinally and beyond this course.


Author(s):  
Anom Bowolaksono ◽  
Fatma Lestari ◽  
Saraswati Andani Satyawardhani ◽  
Abdul Kadir ◽  
Cynthia Febrina Maharani ◽  
...  

Developing countries face various challenges in implementing bio-risk management systems in the laboratory. In addition, educational settings are considered as workplaces with biohazard risks. Every activity in a laboratory facility carries many potential hazards that can impact human health and the environment and may cause laboratory incidents, including Laboratory Acquired Infections (LAIs). In an effort to minimize the impact and occurrence of these incidents, it is necessary to evaluate the implementation of a bio-risk management system in every activity that involves handling biological agents. This study was conducted in an Indonesian higher-education institution, herein coded as University Y. This is a descriptive, semi-quantitative study aimed at analysing and evaluating the implementation of the bio-risk management systems used in laboratories by analysing the achievements obtained by each laboratory. The study used primary data that were collected using a checklist which referred to ISO 35001: 2019 on Laboratory Bio-risk Management. The checklist consisted of 202 items forming seven main elements. In addition, secondary data obtained from literature and document review were also used. The results show that out of 11 laboratories examined, only 2 laboratories met 50% of the requirements, which were Laboratory A and B, achieving good performance. Regarding the clauses of standards, a gap analysis identified leadership, performance evaluation, and support as elements with the lowest achievement. Therefore, corrective action should be developed by enhancing the commitment from management as well as improving documentation, policy, education and training.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 7
Author(s):  
Nur Zihan Abd Rashid ◽  
Tuan Nur Athirah Nabilah Tuan Ismail ◽  
Bibianah Thomas

Service quality is a very crucial element in ensuring the competitiveness of various institutions. By having a good service quality, the reputation of the organization will enhance and thus become their added competitive advantage. In higher education institution, service quality is important to ensure the students whom are their primary stakeholders are able to have a good learning experience in which will then influence their satisfaction. The primary objective of this paper is to analyze the correlation between five elements in SERVQUAL dimensions (tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy) and the student satisfaction. The questionnaires were distributed among the students in various faculties in UiTM Sabah by using convenience sampling technique and 250 questionnaires were managed to be collected for analysis. Overall, the result shows that the students are satisfied with service quality in UiTM Sabah. Specifically, all five SERVQUAL dimensions correlate with student satisfaction. Reliability, responsiveness and empathy dimensions have strong correlation with student satisfaction. Meanwhile, both tangibility and assurance have moderate correlation with student satisfaction. This study is hoped to contribute towards the new knowledge in the field of service quality especially in higher education institutions Future research is also proposed at the final section of this study to discover new findings from different perspectives of service quality. Keywords: servqual; students’ satisfaction; service quality; higher education institution; service delivery.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nadiia Vientseva ◽  
◽  
Oleva Karapetrova

The article reports the results of the empirical study of the impact of volitional qualities development on the level of academic achievements of higher education institution students. The article gives a theoretical analysis of the main types of volitional qualities that affect the assimilation of educational material by students. There was established the level of their development and the relationship with academic achievements. The article also identifies the main psycho-pedagogical and organizational peculiarities that affect the success of mastering the knowledge by university students. The psychological and pedagogical recommendations for forming, developing and supporting the volitional sphere of students are developed.


Author(s):  
Afaf Mubarak Bugawa ◽  
Andri Mirzal

This article describes how the use of Web 2.0 technologies in the field of learning is on the rise. By their nature, Web 2.0 technologies increase the interactivity between users where interactivity is considered to be a key to success in traditional classrooms. This article reviews recent studies in the field of Web 2.0 technologies for learning and their impacts on the learning experiences and investigates relationship between Web 2.0 technologies and pedagogy in higher education on student learning. Key findings about the impacts of using social networks like Facebook, Twitter, blogs and wikis on learning experiences are also discussed. Web 2.0 technologies' characteristics and the rationale of Web 2.0 technologies in learning will also be explored.


2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 104-115
Author(s):  
Sayeed Naqibullah Orfan ◽  
Abdul Hamid Elmyar

Background: COVID-19 has tremendously affected the world including Afghanistan since its outbreak.Objective: This study aimed to investigate the public knowledge about COVID-19 in Afghanistan as well as practices used to prevent contracting the disease. It also studied the attitudes of the public towards the COVID-19 survivors, and the impact of the participants’ gender, place of residence and marital status on their responses.Method: The data were collected from 1472 individuals through an online survey questionnaire. SPSS version 24.0 was used to analyze the data.Results: The findings showed that the public were very knowledgeable about COVID-19. They used various practices to varying extent to prevent contracting COVID-19 and its spread. Moreover, the participants’ attitudes towards the COVID-19 survivors varied. They had negative attitudes towards them if close contact was concerned, but their attitudes were positive towards them if close contact was not involved, e.g., educating community members about the disease. Gender and place of residence had a significant impact on the participants’ knowledge and practices, but they did not affect their attitudes towards the survivors. Furthermore, marital status significantly affected the participants’ practices, but it did not have any impact on their knowledge and attitudes towards the survivors.


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