Communication in the face of death and dying - how does the encounter with death influence the patient management competence of medical students? An outcome-evaluation

Background information As part of an elective course, the Interdisciplinary Centre for Palliative Medicine at Duesseldorf University Hospital offers medical students the opportunity to personally meet and talk to a seriously ill patient on one or more occasions. The future physicians are provided with an opportunity to broaden their professional competence, i.e. their knowledge and skills in patient-centred communication at the end of life, and enhance their personal competence, for example in how to professionally handle their own emotions. A topical e-learning module helps the students to prepare for the meetings, and writing a reflection paper forms the basis for the concluding reflection seminar. Objectives The study’s objective is a global and outcome-based evaluation of the elective blended-learning course that provides real-world patient interaction. The outcome-based evaluation or outcome assessment aims to objectively evaluate changes identified in knowledge, skills and attitude among the participants of the elective-course. Furthermore, the evaluation aims to answer the question of whether changes especially in attitude (social skills and self-competence) should be expected after the students have met with severely ill or dying patients. Method On two questionnaires specifically developed for this survey the students were able to provide a global rating of the elective course and describe their learning gains in palliative care. The students’ learning gains were measured by means of 14 items reflecting the specific educational objectives of the offered elective course. Using the German school grading system as a rating scale, the students assessed their learning progress by retrospectively evaluating their skills before and after completion of the elective course (Comparative Self-Assessment, CSA). Results In the time from April 2018 till March 2020, 62 students participated in the evaluation. Overall, learning progress among students could be observed across all areas of competence, and in 50% of all retrospective self-assessment items the learning gains were ≥ 50%. The highest learning gain (63.6%) was observed in the students’ ability to meet a severely ill patient without fear. The lowest learning gain was observed when students had to confront and accept their own mortality. Conclusions The offered elective course supports students in achieving social and self-competence development goals. According to the obtained results, contact with real-world patients helps mould the students’ attitude.

The teaching and learning of listening and vocabulary in EFL classes at a Chinese university

<p><b>Listening is an important skill for second language learners of any language. To develop listening skills effectively, research suggests using a more process-oriented than product-oriented approach to teaching listening. That is, placing greater emphasis on developing learner awareness and strategic competence than on answering listening comprehension questions. The present study investigates how listening is taught by two teachers in the context of Chinese tertiary English foreign language (EFL) classes, where listening tends to be taught as a discreet skill. Another focus of the research is how the relationship between vocabulary and listening is understood and addressed in this context. While it is well known that vocabulary knowledge is needed for and can be learnt through listening, less is known about how the vocabulary support is provided and vocabulary knowledge is gained in such listening classes.</b></p> <p>This research involved three main areas of investigation. The first area investigated the teaching of listening. It involved a content analysis of listening materials in the textbook (e.g., listening texts and listening activities), followed by classroom observations of listening instruction practices, and post-lesson interviews with the teachers and their learners about their beliefs about teaching and learning listening. Findings showed that a product-oriented approach dominated the textbook materials, the classroom practices and the beliefs of the teachers and learners.</p> <p>The second area concerns the vocabulary demands of these listening classes. This involved a corpus-based analysis of the frequency and kinds of vocabulary in the textbook, followed by measurement of the learners’ vocabulary size (i.e., the Vocabulary Size Test by Nation & Beglar, 2007) and knowledge (i.e., a recognition task in the Yes/No format). The corpus analyses results showed that: (1) vocabulary knowledge of 3000-word families was required to comprehend the textbook; (2) high frequency vocabulary made up the majority of the words in the textbook. The VST results showed that, on average, the learners’ written receptive size ranged from 5000 to 7000-word families. The pre-lesson Yes/No task results showed that the students had difficulty recognizing a substantial number of the words they met in the textbook.</p> <p>The third area investigated the nature of vocabulary support and vocabulary learning in the listening class. Firstly, an analysis of the teachers’ classroom practices from observation data relating to vocabulary was carried out. Secondly, interview data from the teachers was examined for evidence of their beliefs about vocabulary and listening. Thirdly, post-lesson interview data with learners and data from a post-test repeat of the vocabulary recognition task were examined to find out more about the learners’ perceptions of vocabulary in listening class and the vocabulary learning gains they made in these classes. Findings revealed that the learners relied on the glossaries to prepare for listening classes. They also expected vocabulary instruction from the teachers, so long as it did not distract from listening activity completion. Both teachers primarily used translation to provide vocabulary support, but differed markedly in the amount of vocabulary support they provided. In both classes, significant vocabulary gains were found in a comparison of the pre-and-post lesson Yes/No task results. The vocabulary-related episodes in the listening classes were a notable influence on these learning gains.</p> <p>This research has pedagogical implications for the EFL listening classroom. The findings highlight the mutually reinforcing influences of textbook design and teacher beliefs on how listening is taught. These influences, in turn, shape how learners perceive the process of developing their L2 listening skills. With respect to vocabulary and listening, the findings also suggest that even where the lexical demands of listening appear to be well within the vocabulary level of the learners, there is considerable potential for vocabulary learning from listening classes. Teachers and learners alike are likely to benefit from systematically building on this potential. Future research could further investigate L2 learners’ behaviors and perceptions in the listening class, and examine their vocabulary knowledge in the spoken form.</p>

The teaching and learning of listening and vocabulary in EFL classes at a Chinese university

<p><b>Listening is an important skill for second language learners of any language. To develop listening skills effectively, research suggests using a more process-oriented than product-oriented approach to teaching listening. That is, placing greater emphasis on developing learner awareness and strategic competence than on answering listening comprehension questions. The present study investigates how listening is taught by two teachers in the context of Chinese tertiary English foreign language (EFL) classes, where listening tends to be taught as a discreet skill. Another focus of the research is how the relationship between vocabulary and listening is understood and addressed in this context. While it is well known that vocabulary knowledge is needed for and can be learnt through listening, less is known about how the vocabulary support is provided and vocabulary knowledge is gained in such listening classes.</b></p> <p>This research involved three main areas of investigation. The first area investigated the teaching of listening. It involved a content analysis of listening materials in the textbook (e.g., listening texts and listening activities), followed by classroom observations of listening instruction practices, and post-lesson interviews with the teachers and their learners about their beliefs about teaching and learning listening. Findings showed that a product-oriented approach dominated the textbook materials, the classroom practices and the beliefs of the teachers and learners.</p> <p>The second area concerns the vocabulary demands of these listening classes. This involved a corpus-based analysis of the frequency and kinds of vocabulary in the textbook, followed by measurement of the learners’ vocabulary size (i.e., the Vocabulary Size Test by Nation & Beglar, 2007) and knowledge (i.e., a recognition task in the Yes/No format). The corpus analyses results showed that: (1) vocabulary knowledge of 3000-word families was required to comprehend the textbook; (2) high frequency vocabulary made up the majority of the words in the textbook. The VST results showed that, on average, the learners’ written receptive size ranged from 5000 to 7000-word families. The pre-lesson Yes/No task results showed that the students had difficulty recognizing a substantial number of the words they met in the textbook.</p> <p>The third area investigated the nature of vocabulary support and vocabulary learning in the listening class. Firstly, an analysis of the teachers’ classroom practices from observation data relating to vocabulary was carried out. Secondly, interview data from the teachers was examined for evidence of their beliefs about vocabulary and listening. Thirdly, post-lesson interview data with learners and data from a post-test repeat of the vocabulary recognition task were examined to find out more about the learners’ perceptions of vocabulary in listening class and the vocabulary learning gains they made in these classes. Findings revealed that the learners relied on the glossaries to prepare for listening classes. They also expected vocabulary instruction from the teachers, so long as it did not distract from listening activity completion. Both teachers primarily used translation to provide vocabulary support, but differed markedly in the amount of vocabulary support they provided. In both classes, significant vocabulary gains were found in a comparison of the pre-and-post lesson Yes/No task results. The vocabulary-related episodes in the listening classes were a notable influence on these learning gains.</p> <p>This research has pedagogical implications for the EFL listening classroom. The findings highlight the mutually reinforcing influences of textbook design and teacher beliefs on how listening is taught. These influences, in turn, shape how learners perceive the process of developing their L2 listening skills. With respect to vocabulary and listening, the findings also suggest that even where the lexical demands of listening appear to be well within the vocabulary level of the learners, there is considerable potential for vocabulary learning from listening classes. Teachers and learners alike are likely to benefit from systematically building on this potential. Future research could further investigate L2 learners’ behaviors and perceptions in the listening class, and examine their vocabulary knowledge in the spoken form.</p>

Knowledge in Sight: Toddlers Plan Efficient Epistemic Actions by Anticipating Learning Gains

Anticipating the learning consequences of actions is crucial to plan efficient information-seeking. Such a capacity is needed for learners to determine which actions are most likely to result in learning. Here, we tested the early ontogeny of the human capacity to anticipate the amount of learning gained from seeing. In Study 1, we tested infants’ capacity to anticipate the availability of sight. Fourteen-month-old infants (N = 72) were invited to search for a toy hidden inside a container. The participants were faster to attempt at opening a shutter when this action allowed them to see inside the container. Moreover, this effect was specifically observed when seeing inside the container was potentially useful to the participants’ goals. Thus, infants anticipated the availability of sight, and they calibrated their information-seeking behaviors accordingly. In Studies 2-3, we tested toddlers’ capacity to anticipate whether data would be cognitively useful for their goals. Two-and-a-half-year-olds (N = 72) had to locate a target character hidden among distractors. The participants flipped the characters more often, and were comparatively faster to initiate this action when it yielded access to visual data allowing them to locate the target. Thus, toddlers planned their information-seeking behaviors by anticipating the cognitive utility of sight. In contrast, toddlers did not calibrate their behaviors to the cognitive usefulness of auditory data. These results suggest that cognitive models of learning guide toddlers’ search for information. The early developmental onset of the capacity to anticipate future learning gains is crucial for active learning.

Information and Records Management Department Students' Attitudes Towards Mobile Learning

Determining university students' approaches to mobile learning gains is important in terms of future education planning. Information and records management department students are expected to have the knowledge, skills, and techniques to enable the selection, analysis, evaluation, organisation, storage, access, and use of information that exists, especially in printed or electronic information carriers. It is considered that these students' approaches and attitudes towards mobile learning are an issue that should be considered and investigated in terms of their professional development. This study aims to determine the attitudes of Karatekin University, Department of Information and Records Management students towards mobile learning. The results of the study show that the knowledge professional candidates' attitudes towards mobile learning were positive. Based on results, it is suggested to use, in the future, mobile learning tools more in both theoretical education and practical education.

Are Social and Ethnic Reading Inequalities Increasing During School Closures?—The Mediating Role of Parental Involvement in Distance Learning

From spring 2020 many countries throughout Europe and beyond temporarily closed schools to tackle the spread of the coronavirus. First studies indicate that these school closures resulted in lower learning gains compared to learning gains in preceding years and widened social and ethnic disparities by affecting disadvantaged students more strongly than their more advantaged peers. Moreover, during school closures, parental involvement in distance learning is regarded as crucial for successful learning, especially for younger children. In the current study, we examine whether social and ethnic disparities in the reading achievement of primary school students widened during COVID-related school closures in spring 2020 and whether increased disparities are mediated by parental involvement in distance learning. We use data from 409 Austrian 2nd graders, whose teachers participated in an ongoing study on the use of learning progress assessment. Adopting a within-subject design, we first compare the effects of social and ethnic family background on reading achievement during a pre-lockdown period with the respective effects during a lockdown period of similar length. Controlling for pre-lockdown reading differences, we found that low socioeconomic status and non-German language use at home negatively predicted post-lockdown reading achievement, indicating that post-lockdown disparities were larger than expected due to disparities at pre-lockdown. In contrast, we found no such effects during the pre-lockdown period. Second, a series of mediation models did not provide any support for the hypothesis that parental involvement accounted for family background effects on reading achievement during the lockdown period.

The Interplay between Heritage Learners’ Prior Knowledge and Instruction on a Linguistically Complex Structure

Current HL pedagogy recommends focus on form approaches (Beaudrie, Ducar, & Potowski, 2014; Kisselev, Dubinina, & Polinsky, 2020) but within this broad category there are many techniques. To date only a few studies have compared HL learning gains on explicit and implicit focus on form instruction, and these have found explicit instruction to be more beneficial. The present study isolated the role of rule presentation on learning gains by comparing Spanish HL learners in a Processing Instruction condition (n = 26) who received rule presentation and explicit information about the target structure (indicative and subjunctive in adverbial clauses of time) prior to structured input, to HL learners in a Structured Input condition (n = 16) who received only structured input. Pretest/posttest/delayed posttest comparisons revealed that both PI and SI resulted in lasting learning gains, as well as a complex interplay between learners’ initial knowledge of the structure and the type of instruction, such that learners with little or no initial knowledge benefited from rule presentation, whereas learners with greater initial knowledge did not. Furthermore, data from think-alouds and retrospective interviews shows that all learners did not process the instruction similarly, and pedagogical implications are discussed.

Beyond Short-Term Learning Gains: The Impact of Outsourcing Schools in Liberia After Three Years

Outsourcing the management of ninety-three randomly-selected government primary schools in Liberia to eight private operators led to learning gains of .18σ after one year, but these effects plateaued in subsequent years (reaching .2σ after three years). Beyond learning gains, the program reduced corporal punishment (by 4.6 percentage points from a base of 51%), but increased dropout (by 3.3 percentage points from a base of 15%) and failed to reduce sexual abuse. Despite facing similar contracts and settings, some providers produced uniformly positive results, while others present trade-offs between learning gains, access to education, child safety, and financial sustainability.

Improving Comprehension: Intelligent Tutoring System Explaining the Domain Rules When Students Break Them

Intelligent tutoring systems have become increasingly common in assisting students but are often aimed at isolated subject-domain tasks without creating a scaffolding system from lower- to higher-level cognitive skills, with low-level skills often neglected. We designed and developed an intelligent tutoring system, CompPrehension, which aims to improve the comprehension level of Bloom’s taxonomy. The system features plug-in-based architecture, easily adding new subject domains and learning strategies. It uses formal models and software reasoners to solve the problems and judge the answers, and generates explanatory feedback about the broken domain rules and follow-up questions to stimulate the students’ thinking. We developed two subject domain models: an Expressions domain for teaching the expression order of evaluation, and a Control Flow Statements domain for code-tracing tasks. The chief novelty of our research is that the developed models are capable of automatic problem classification, determining the knowledge required to solve them and so the pedagogical conditions to use the problem without human participation. More than 100 undergraduate first-year Computer Science students took part in evaluating the system. The results in both subject domains show medium but statistically significant learning gains after using the system for a few days; students with worse previous knowledge gained more. In the Control Flow Statements domain, the number of completed questions correlates positively with the post-test grades and learning gains. The students’ survey showed a slightly positive perception of the system.