scholarly journals How Effectively are University Students Tested? A Case Study

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-66
Author(s):  
Jane Kembo

Testing and examining go on in higher education all the time through continuous assessments and end semester examinations. The grades scored by students determine not only academic mobility but eventually who get employed in the job market, which seems to be shrinking all over the world. Those charged with testing are often staff who have higher qualifications in their subject areas but are not necessarily teaching or examination experts. Against this background, the researcher wanted to find out what was happening at selected university across three schools: Social Studies, Education and Science. The university is fairly young having been awarded its charter twenty years ago. The paper asked two questions namely, at what levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy are lecturers asking examination questions? Secondly, do the level and balance of questions show growth in examining skills? The study evaluated over 1039 questions from randomly selected examination papers from the Examinations Office for the academic years from 2014/15 to 2017/18 (three academic years). A guide from the list of verbs used in Anderson s (revision of Bloom was used to analyze the questions. Descriptive statistics were used to describe the trends in testing for each year. ANOVA and t-tests were used to find out if there were significant differences between numbers across categories and within categories. The results of the study show that most examination questions are at the levels of remember (literal) and knowledge (understand). In 2016/17 and 2017/18 academic years, there were significant differences in the percentage of questions examined in these two categories. However, it seems from the study, that testing or examining skills do not grow through the practice of setting questions. There is need for examiners to be trained to use the knowledge in setting questions that discriminate effectively across the academic abilities of students they teach.

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bezon Kumar ◽  
Arif Ibne Asad ◽  
Purnima Banik

This paper mainly investigates the perception and knowledge on climate change of the university students in Bangladesh. To carry out this study, primary data are collected from 370 students and uses several statistical methods. Perception and knowledge on the causes, effects and mitigation ways of climate change problems, and perceived duties to combat against climate change are analyzed with descriptive statistics. This paper finds that deforestation is the main cause of global warming and climate change and, the effects of climate change is very serious on people’s health. Majority portion of the students think that it is difficult to combat against climate change problem because it has already been too late to take action. Besides this study also finds that government is crucially responsible for combating against climate change problem. The study calls for government mainly besides industry and youths to aware people about the causes, effects, mitigation ways of climate change so that they can contribute to the sustainable development by mitigating climate change problem.


Author(s):  
Taleb Eli

This study was carried to inspect students` views on the use of innovative and interactive teaching methods used in the English studies major at the University of Nouakchott Al Aasriya, Mauritania. This was a corollary of the fact that innovation in teaching, regardless the nature of the course or subject, has become a buzz word in the academic institutions. A quantitative research methodology was used and the data were collected from 101 students from the English Department. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS as an attempt to provide descriptive statistics to verify the students` perception of the use of innovative and interactive teaching methods. The findings of the study revealed that 91.1% of the students believe that their teachers do use some of the innovative and interactive teaching methods in their classes; still, 70.3% of the respondents were in favor of continuous trainings for teachers on the use of innovative and interactive teaching methods, which is a very alarming percentage. Also, the findings of this study have some significant implications such as the necessity to move from teaching to learning as an attempt to make learning an enjoyable and memorable experience.  The results of this study contribute to literature by concentrating on the use of innovative and interactive teaching methods in Mauritanian higher education institutes.   Keywords: Innovative, Interactive, Teaching Methods, Students, Higher Education, Mauritania


Author(s):  
Joshua Z. Gahr ◽  
Michael P. Young

Joshua Z. Gahr and Michael P. Young’s chapter provides a historical analysis of the somewhat counterintuitive, yet central, role that Protestant institutions played in the emergence of the new Left. Through a case study of the Christian Faith-and-Life Community at the University of Texas at Austin from 1955 to 1962, the chapter documents how a group of liberal Presbyterian, Methodist, and Baptist clergy pushed university students to reconceive the Church’s “mission-in-the-world” and their personal witness to this mission in ways that unleashed a moral “breakthrough.”


Author(s):  
James C Taylor ◽  
Peter Swannell

The rapid rate of technological change and the rapidly growing number of institutions now embarking on Internet-based delivery means that more institutions are involved in distance education than at any other time in history. As institutions throughout the world increasingly offer courses via the Internet, there will emerge a global higher education economy in which institutions will face global competition for students, especially those involved in continuing professional education and lifelong learning. The emergence of the global higher education economy could well act as a catalyst for overcoming the institutional inertia that typifies the organisational culture of many universities. This transition from the Industrial to the Information Age was encapsulated by Dolence and Norris (1995), who argued that to survive organisations would need to change from rigid, formula driven entities to organisations that were "fast, flexible, and fluid" (p. 31) -- adjectives not typically used to describe the salient features of universities! This case study outlines the response of a well-established dual mode institution, The University of Southern Queensland (USQ), to the "gales of creative destruction" (Schumpeter, 1950, p. 84) that currently beset higher education institutions throughout the world.


Author(s):  
N.R. Madhava Menon

The purpose of looking at Indian universities in a comparative perspective is obviously to locate it among higher education institutions across the world and to identify its strengths and weaknesses in the advancement of learning and research. In doing so, one can discern the directions for reform in order to put the university system in a competitive advantage for an emerging knowledge society. This chapter looks at the current state of universities in India and highlights the initiatives under way for change and proposes required policy changes.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 712
Author(s):  
Andrea Okanović ◽  
Jelena Ješić ◽  
Vladimir Đaković ◽  
Simonida Vukadinović ◽  
Andrea Andrejević Panić

Growing environmental problems and increasing requirements of green jobs force universities around the world not only to transform their curricula but also to enrich existing ones with contents related to the promotion of sustainable development. This paper aims to show the importance of measuring and monitoring the share of green contents in all university activities, as only in that way it is possible to monitor trends and give realistic assessments of their effect and importance. The paper presents a comparative analysis of different types of methodologies for assessing sustainable activities at universities as well as research conducted at the University of Novi Sad in Serbia and its comparison with the University of Gothenburg (Sweden). This research aims to point out the importance of increasing competitiveness in higher education through assessment of green content in a curriculum and its promotion. In this way, through eco-labeling methodology, it would be easier to identify those contents that, in a certain share, contribute to the promotion of sustainable development. Furthermore, this methodology can easily be extended across the country and the region, which would bring positive effects to all stakeholders in higher education.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 392
Author(s):  
Estibaliz Sáez de Cámara ◽  
Idoia Fernández ◽  
Nekane Castillo-Eguskitza

Since the United Nations (UN) approved the Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development in 2015, higher education institutions have increasingly demonstrated their commitment by supporting several initiatives. Although a great deal of progress has been made, there is still a lack of integrative approaches to truly implement Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in higher education. This paper presents a practical case that illustrates how to design and articulate SDGs within an institutional setting adopting a holistic approach: EHUagenda 2030 plan of the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU). It is based on empirical inquiry into global and holistic sustainable transformation and a real experience to move towards a verifiable and pragmatic contribution to sustainability. This plan describes the contribution to 12 of the 17 SDGs, along with three sectorial plans (Equality Campus, Inclusion Campus and Planet Campus), as well as the refocus of the UPV/EHU’s Educational Model and the panel of sustainable development indicators, which addresses the technical aspects of monitoring the SDGs. The methodology (mapping; mainstreaming; diagnosis and definition and, finally, estimation) is systematic and replicable in other universities yet to embark upon this integration. This case study makes a contribution towards the understanding of the complexity of the changes in Higher Education and the ways to approach it.


2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (2.10) ◽  
pp. 76
Author(s):  
Mhd Subhan ◽  
Mas’ud Zein ◽  
Akhyar . ◽  
Mohd Hakimie Zainal Abidin ◽  
Sallehudin Ali ◽  
...  

This paper examines the validation instrument used to measure the psychometric status of the self-employment intentions. Self-employment intentions are crucial to identify the university students in order to confirm their decision making. They are a questionnaire to measure graduation in university to start choice on their careers. This instrument is composed of 11 items and was carried out to 115 international students studying in one Indonesian higher education. There were 49 male and 66 female respondents involved in this study. The Cronbach’s Alpha value was .94 which strongly suggest that the instrument has an excellent reliability. This study points out that self-employment intentions are suitable to be used by college personnel and counselors to examine and identify self-employment intentions among international students in Indonesian higher education. Implications for future study will also be discussed. 


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