Educational textbooks in digital surroundings

The Danish educations, as well as the Danish society, are influenced by technology in many ways. This amongst other influences the student’s choices regarding educational learning material. These issues, however, are not solely issues in relation to Danish educations but can be generalized across contexts. This article, however, presents a discussion of the findings in a Danish study regarding the use of educational textbooks among students in Denmark. The study examines the use of the traditional educational textbooks in terms of how it is used, to what extent it is used, the students' wishes regarding textbooks vs online books and if there are educational and gender differences in their preferences. The study also investigates the student way of handling the textbooks such as sharing, copying, selling and buying etc. in the discussion section the study will compare themes identified in this study across educational contexts, and will thus not solely focus on Danish education contexts. Empirically, the study builds on a survey conducted among students in the Bachelor Programmes, the Vocational Educational Programmes regarding the Health Care Educations and in the General Upper Secondary Schools. The study includes a response from 1146 students. The article discusses the findings with perspectives such as work methods, communication, and interaction, and concludes among others that even though the students still prefer the textbooks, the ebooks in some ways supplement this use in a beneficial manner. The article argues that the textbook and the ebook should not be seen as each other’s competitors but rather as each other’s supplement in terms of learnings styles.

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Prevalence of exhaustion symptoms and associations with school level, length of work experience and gender: a nationwide cross-sectional study of Swedish principals

BMC Public Health ◽

10.1186/s12889-021-10317-7 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 21 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Roger Persson ◽

Ulf Leo ◽

Inger Arvidsson ◽

Carita Håkansson ◽

Kerstin Nilsson ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Adult Education ◽

Work Experience ◽

School Level ◽

Prevalence Rates ◽

Cross Sectional ◽

Upper Secondary ◽

And Gender ◽

Compulsory Schools ◽

Upper Secondary Schools ◽

Exhaustion Disorder

Abstract Background While poor mental health and psychiatric disorders attributed to stressful work conditions are a public health concern in many countries, the health consequences of the occupational stress experienced by school principals is an understudied issue. Although current data is lacking, some research suggests that principals have a stressful work situation that eventually may lead to burnout and exhaustion disorder, thus negatively affecting the ability of principals to function as leaders. To gauge the situation in Sweden, and as a basis for future preventive actions, we examined to what extent principals displayed signs of exhaustion and whether the prevalence rates of exhaustion differed across school levels, length of work experience as a principal, and gender. Methods Principals (N = 2219; mean age 49 years [SD 7 years]; 78% women) working at least 50% in pre-schools, compulsory schools, upper secondary schools or adult education completed a cross-sectional web survey entailing two validated inventories: The Karolinska Exhaustion Disorder Scale (KEDS) and the Lund University Checklist for Incipient Exhaustion (LUCIE). Data was analysed using traditional non-parametric methods. Gender stratification achieved covariate balance when analysing school level and length of work experience. Results Altogether, 29.0% of the principals met the exhaustion criteria in KEDS. The prevalence rates for the four LUCIE-steps of increasing signs of exhaustion were: no signs of stress, 48.8%; weak signs of stress, 25.6%; clear signs of stress but no exhaustion, 15.4%; possible exhaustion disorder, 10.2%. Compared with male principals, female principals reported more signs of possible exhaustion disorder in both LUCIE and KEDS. School level was not associated with reports of exhaustion symptoms in neither LUCIE nor KEDS. Among male principals, length of work experience was associated with exhaustion symptoms in KEDS. Conclusions A large group of Swedish principals working in pre-schools, compulsory schools, upper secondary schools or adult education displayed a symptomatology of signs of exhaustion that if sustained might lead to poor health. This observation suggests that education authorities, or other relevant stakeholders, ought to take some form of preventive action. However, effective combinations of individual, group, organisational, and/or societal preventive activities remain to be identified and tested.

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Designing Better Mobile Collaborative Laboratories for Ecology Field Work for Upper Secondary Schools

2012 IEEE Seventh International Conference on Wireless, Mobile and Ubiquitous Technology in Education ◽

10.1109/wmute.2012.20 ◽

2012 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Daniel Spikol ◽

Nuno Otero

Keyword(s):

Secondary Schools ◽

Field Work ◽

Upper Secondary ◽

Upper Secondary Schools

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A quantitative investigation of the effects of new generation vs traditional upper secondary schools in Cambodia through the lens of STEM transfer model

International Journal of Comparative Education and Development ◽

10.1108/ijced-03-2021-0025 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽

Author(s):

Sovansophal Kao

Keyword(s):

Secondary Schools ◽

Attitudes Toward Science ◽

Content Type ◽

Math Teachers ◽

Upper Secondary ◽

New Form ◽

K 12 ◽

New Generation ◽

Upper Secondary Schools ◽

Practical Implications

PurposeThis study aimed to examine the effects of Cambodia's New Generation Schools (NGS), as compared to their traditional counterparts, in enhancing the seven constructs: (1) science and math achievement, (2) science and math self-efficacy, (3) science and math outcome expectations, (4) attitudes toward science, (5) interactive science and math lessons, (6) support from science and math teachers and (7) encouragement and support in science from family.Design/methodology/approachThe two observations data was collected using self-rated questionnaire from 301 11th graders from five upper secondary schools located in three provinces of Cambodia. Independent sample t-test, Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) and dependent sample t-test were used to analyze the repeated measures data.FindingsThe study revealed that students from the NGS exhibited statistically higher scores for most constructs, especially for attitudes toward science. However, when controlling for the differences in the first observation data, the significant effects of the three constructs have been neutralized. Moreover, though there was an increase in science activities outside school, there was a negative trajectory in the other two sub-constructs of attitudes toward science and support from science and math teachers, both in NGS and traditional schools.Practical implicationsThese findings point some practical implications for enhancing the effectiveness of the two school types and further research.Originality/valueThere is heavy investment in new form of schools across the world to enhance students' learning and academic achievement in science and math in K-12 and to promote their interest in STEM in higher education. However, there is little document on the effectiveness of this new form of school, particularly in the Cambodian context.

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