The effects of course format, sex, semester, and institution on student performance in an undergraduate animal science course

The transition of courses from in-person to an online format due to the COVID-19 pandemic could have potentially affected overall student performance in lecture-based courses. The objective of this case study was to determine the impact of course format, as well as the effects of student sex, time of year at which the course was taken, and the institution it was taken at on student performance in an undergraduate animal science course. The course used for this study was taught at two institutions (University of Florida; UF and University of Nevada, Reno; UNR) over seven years (2014-2017 at UNR and 2018-2021 at UF). Student performance (n = 911) was evaluated using both quizzes and exams from 2014 through the spring semester 2020 and only exams were used for summer and fall semesters of 2020 and the spring and summer semesters of 2021. The final score (out of 100%) for each student was used to evaluate student performance. In addition, students were classified as high performing students if they scored ≥ 95% and low performing students if they scored ≤ 70%. The variables that were evaluated were the effects of semester (spring, summer, or fall), institution (UF or UNR), sex (male or female), number of teaching assistants (TAs; 0 to 13), and course format (online or in-person). The course was taught in-person at UNR and in-person and online at UF. The spring semester of 2020 was taught in-person until March but was switched to online approximately nine weeks after the semester started and was considered an online semester for this analysis. As the course was only taught online at UF, the variable course format was assessed using UF records only. Data was analyzed using both linear models and logistic regressions. The probability that students were high performing was not affected by sex or institution. Interestingly, both fall semester, and the online format had a positive, desirable effect on the probability that students were high performing. The probability that students were low performing was not affected by sex. However, if a student performed poorly in the class, they were more likely to have taken the course at UNR, or at UF with many TAs. Thus, student performance was impacted by changing the course format, as well as institution, the number of TAs, and the semester in which the course was taken.

Challenges of Online Exam Systems in the COVID-19 Pandemic Era

The swift conversion of courses to online format and online exam systems has identified the COVID-19 pandemic era. All educators on the globe have faced the obstacles of abrupt adoption of distance education learning methods. This unexpected shift has presented numerous challenges as preparing an online course content requires developing detailed course plan design, audio and video content, and technical support equipment. This chapter focuses on determining the problems and developing solutions based on the student perceptions about the online exams, which were compulsorily transitioned during the pandemic process. A survey about student perceptions of online exams has been developed and applied to the students after they have taken the exam. Descriptive statistics is used to analyze the data. E-assessment of perception about the online exam system and its impacts on motivation and performance are discussed, and suggestions to improve the system are provided in the chapter.

The Challenges of Training in Psychology

The training of the clinical psychologist requires the development of competencies in the fields of mental health prevention, health promotion, diagnosis, and treatment of mental illness. This training has undergone many changes due to the pandemic, evolution of education, and the translation of clinical practices to an online format. The present proposal focuses on making a review and reflection on the best practices derived from the adaptation of the training of these professionals with a future-oriented look. This chapter seeks to address two critical questions: What practices are necessary for the acquisition of the disciplinary competencies of clinical psychologists? and What didactic strategies were integrated during the COVID-19 pandemic? In the light of the lessons learned from the pandemic, the main tasks to be faced by the clinical psychologist in the face of the new demands of practice that require the creation of programs of psychological intervention and psychosocial support to the community are pointed out.

Technological University Faculty ICT Barriers during the Pandemic

Во время пандемии коронавируса преподаватели столкнулись с необходимостью быстро перевести весь образовательный процесс в онлайн-формат. Университеты испытывали трудности с быстрой организацией и унификацией данного процесса для преподавательского состава. Готовность преподавателей к проведению онлайн-занятий существенно различалась, и в условиях самоизоляции они испытывали трудности в получении технической поддержки или консультаций относительно решения возникающих проблем. Данное исследование было нацелено на выявление ИКТ-барьеров, с которыми преподаватели столкнулись в ходе пандемии. Для решения этой задачи авторами был проведен опрос преподавателей Казанского национального исследовательского технологического университета на основе анкеты, включавшей утверждения относительно трудностей, с которыми преподаватели столкнулись в ходе онлайн-коммуникации с обучающимися с начала пандемии. Отношение к тридцати трем барьерам оценивалось на основе коэффициента углового преобразования Фишера с учетом должности, ученой степени преподавателей, стажа работы, возраста, пола и преподаваемых дисциплин. During the coronavirus pandemic, faculty members were faced with the need to suddenly transfer the entire educational process to an online format. Universities found it difficult to quickly organize and unify this process for their educators. The latter’s readiness to conduct online classes varied, and in conditions of self-isolation it was difficult for them to get technical support or consultations on how to solve emerging problems. The current study aims to identify the ICT barriers that educators faced after the outbreak of the pandemic and their preferences of the various online tools they used during this period. To achieve these objectives, the authors surveyed faculty members at the Kazan National Research Technological University. A questionnaire was developed including statements concerning difficulties faculty members had experienced in their online-communication with learners since the beginning of the pandemic. Attitudes towards thirty-three barriers were evaluated depending on respondents’ faculty position, scientific degree, teaching experience, age, gender, and group of taught disciplines.

Evolution of the Associative-Verbal Network of the Concept “Old Age” in the Language Consciousness of the Native Russian-Language Speakers of the 20s of the XXI Century

The development of information technologies, change of political system and other socio-political changes in the life of any state, leave an imprint on the linguistic consciousness of a typical native speaker. Notwithstanding, the national conceptual sphere or nave linguistic picture of the world has undergone significant changes, for all the changes in the world around us are fragmentally recorded in the collective linguistic consciousness of Russian language native speakers. The concepts of old age that were relevant to the residents of our state three decades ago, have undergone significant changes. Negative attitude to the old age, pessimism, and a sense of the inevitable end of life, have been replaced by the hope of a prosperous, happy, financially stable old age. The younger generation does not hesitate to draw a parallel between such concepts as old age and retirement - this fact was recorded for the first time as previously, the scientific studies based on data from associative experiments, hadnt noted similar approach. The above conclusions were obtained as a result of a chain associative experiment with the word-stimulus old age, which involves obtaining 3 reactions of students to this stimulus (on the basis of the Faculty of Philology of the RUDN). 99 students (aged 17-25), native speakers of the Russian language, were selected to participate in the experiment (these parameters are reflected in the questionnaire of the subjects). Due to the unfavorable epidemiological situation and the conditions of distance learning, the experiment was conducted in an online format using the MS Forms application. The obtained resulting associative-verbal network of the concept old age was compared with the characteristics of the above-mentioned concept, recorded in the Associative Dictionary of the Russian Language edited by Yuri Nikolaevich Karaulov.

HIGHER EDUCATION LEARNERS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS EMERGENCY ONLINE INSTRUCTION DURING COVID-19 PANDEMIC: THE CONTEXT OF TURKEY

This mixed-methods study aimed at investigating the Turkish higher education learners’ attitudes towards Emergency Online Teaching (EOT) under the Covid-19 pandemic in order to discover the benefits and drawbacks of it. The participants were 251 higher education learners who received the EOT during the Covid-19 crisis in Turkey. Both qualitative and quantitative data were gathered by means of a questionnaire in August 2020. Quantitative data were obtained via closed-ended questions with the response on a Likert-scale format. Qualitative data were acquired through open-ended questions. The results showed that the hurried shift to an online instruction by universities in Turkey was not fully satisfactory and the majority of the respondents (74.1%) preferred face-to-face learning to the online format, however, the participants also stated that they felt safer during this pandemic disease thanks to the availability of distant online education. The drawbacks they mentioned included inadequate technological infrastructure or facilities, lack of sufficient teacher-student and peer interaction, lack of learners’ attention and concentration, tediousness of online lessons, learners’ inadequate engagement in class activities, as well as the absence of comprehensive assessment procedure.

Online Simulations for Teaching Professional Legal Skills

Experiential learning approach in legal education is a global influential trend. Legal clinics is one of the most obvious examples of including experiential learning approach into the educational curriculum for law students. The main educational value of legal clinics is a providing training opportunity for students to apply their legal knowledge and skills in professional simulations like role plays of interviewing, counselling, negotiations, mock trials (first instance hearing) and moot courts (appeal hearing). These type of training programs allow law students to test their ability to client-oriented and problem-solving. The Russian legal clinics community has been actively developing since the mid of 1990s for more than 30 years. More than 100 Law Schools over Russia have own legal clinics. Clinicians overview their experience and share this experience between clinicians community. At the same time only relevantly small part of law students have access to effective training of legal skills because of various reasons, but mostly because of relevantly small number of legal educators who use the experiential-learning approach. Transition of experiential-learning best practices into online format is a good tool of scaling the number of students who could be trained in legal skills significantly. The paper describes the collection of unsupervised online learning modules devoted to legal skills, including case strategy, interviewing, counselling, legal writing and trial skills. These unsupervised online learning modules are developed based on modern instructional approaches to developing of online educational courses. The piloting of the unsupervised online learning modules demonstrates that these modules might be used as a supplementary educational tool and as a part of main educational curriculum for law students.

Experiences with alternative online lectures in medical education in obstetrics and gynecology during the COVID-19 pandemic—possible efficient and student-orientated models for the future?

Purpose The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic posed an eminent challenge for medical teachers worldwide. Face-to-face lectures and seminars were no longer possible, and alternatives had to be found. E-learning concepts quickly emerged as the only practicable solutions and also offered the opportunity to evaluate whether traditional face-to-face lectures could be translated into an online format, independent of the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods We offered an e-learning program consisting of lecture notes, screencasts with audio narration, and online webinars that covered topics normally taught in traditional lectures and seminars. To evaluate the learning behavior and quality of our e-learning program, we drafted a questionnaire that students completed at the end of the 2020 summer semester that had been designed to enable a comparative analysis of the different e-learning modules. Results Voluntary participation in the online courses was high. Survey analysis revealed high satisfaction with and a distinctive preference for the format, even under regular, COVID-19-independent conditions. In general, a positive appraisal of e-learning—especially as a substitute for regular lectures—was found. Students also reported higher studying efficiency. Exam results were equal to those of previous semesters. Conclusion Both acceptance of and satisfaction with our e-learning modules were high, and students displayed increased demand for this kind of e-learning format. We, therefore, conclude that e-learning offerings could serve as reasonable, efficient, student-orientated substitutes for certain medical courses, especially lectures. These curricular adaptations would correlate with the high digitalization seen in students’ everyday lives. This correlation may also hold true independent of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Fatalism, Emotional Regulation, and Suicide Risk in Colombian Adults During the SAR-Cov-2 Disease Epidemic

The current pandemic of Severe Acute Syndrome (SAR-CoV-2) is a public health problem with implications for mental health. The study aimed to determine the prevalence of suicide risk and its association with fatalism and emotional regulation during SARS-CoV-2 in Colombia's adult population. A cross-sectional study was designed, an online format was used, which evaluated sociodemographic variables, CES-D-SI, the Fatalism Questionnaire against COVID-19, and the Emotional Regulation Scale. 435 Colombian adults participated, aged between 18 and 79 years. A prevalence of suicide risk was found in 5.3%, and it was associated with the interaction between living in rural area and less education (OR = 5.60, 95%CI 1.28–24.53), emotional dysregulation (OR = 3.54, 95%CI 1.77–7.09), and fatalistic beliefs (OR = 3.09, 95%CI 1.53–6.27). 5.3% of the population presented an elevated suicide risk. It was associated with less education, rural areas, fatalistic beliefs, and emotional dysregulation in the Colombian population during mandatory confinement due to SAR-CoV-2.