Statistics anxiety in university students in assessment situations

Many students have feelings of state anxiety when exams, and these feelings probably affect their performance. Statistics courses have been identified as producing the most anxiety. The purpose of our study is to measure statistics anxiety throughout an academic course (pre-test and three assessments) in order to observe its change and analyze the relationship between statistics anxiety and academic achievement. The sample is composed of 30 Psychology students taking a course in research designs and statistics (26.7% men and 73.3% women) with a mean age of 20.31 years (SD = 3.76). The results show that the students begin with a high level of statistics anxiety that gradually declines as the course progresses and they study the course materials. Moreover, the final achievement in the subject maintains an inverse relationship with the level of statostics anxiety. The recommendation is to present the detailed contents of the teaching guide on the first day of the course in order to reduce students' anxiety and uncertainty when beginning a statistics course.

Emendo – A Toolchain for Creating Gamified Learning Arrangements for Online Learning Settings

This contribution describes the Emendo toolchain which enables the effective creation and implementation of gamified learning arrangements for online learning settings based on the domain-specific modeling approach. The components of Emendo are a domain-specific modeling language, a generator which transforms models based on the language into source code as well as the embedding of the latter in a learning management system. Scenarios for the usage of Emendo for teaching and learning are presented with respect to the functionalities of the toolchain. In addition, a qualitative evaluation concerning Emendo’s goals, concept and insights on the results is given. The evaluation shows that Emendo reaches high acceptance for teaching purposes and can serve as a promising means for the digitisation of teaching and learning.

Why students travel abroad (and so many others do not): Exploring predictors and decision-making processes in study-related student travel

Over the past few years, studying abroad and other educational international experiences have become increasingly highly regarded. Nevertheless, research shows that only a minority of students actually take part in academic mobility programs. But what is it that distinguishes those students who take up these international opportunities from those who do not? In this study we reviewed recent quantitative studies on why (primarily German) students choose to travel abroad or not. This revealed a pattern of predictive factors. These indicate the key role played by students’ personal and social background, as well as previous international travel and the course of studies they are enrolled in. The study then focuses on teaching students. Both facilitating and debilitating factors are discussed and included in a model illustrating the decision-making process these students use. Finally, we discuss the practical implications for ways in which international, study-related travel might be increased in the future. We suggest that higher education institutions analyze individual student characteristics, offering differentiated programs to better meet the needs of different groups, thus raising the likelihood of disadvanteged students participating in academic international travel.

The Effectiveness of Different Levels of Activation in Higher Education

Although there are several empirical studies about active learning in higher education, there are some open research questions. Especially, it appears to be relevant to find out what type of activity (active, interactive and constructive) has a positive effect on the learning result of participants in task-based activities. In order to answer this question an experimental study was conducted with students in German higher education (N=50). The results do not show a significant difference between active, interactive and constructive activities on learning performance in task-based learning. But all groups have benefited from the classroom activities according to the test results.

Making It: Institutionalizing Collaborative Innovation in Public Higher Education

This descriptive case study provides a broad overview of JMU X-Labs, an academic maker space (in other words, a teaching lab with fabrication and digital production technologies) that hosts team-taught, project-driven multidisciplinary courses. The JMU X-Labs serves the students and faculty of James Madison University[MSR-m1] , a mid-sized, public, and undergraduate-focused university in the United States. The narrative proceeds from two different but overlapping points of view: how courses at JMU X-Labs are designed and taught; and how administration of JMU X-Labs supports them. The authors refer to specific courses, pedagogical methods, and problem-solving strategies to illustrate the narrative, and they argue throughout that pedagogy and administration are indelibly intertwined in how the organization operates. Gesturing to the broad applicability and transferability of the JMU X-Labs model, the authors mark some of areas of further research that would benefit a more robust understanding of how the organization operates and grows. Finally, the authors speculate how the dynamics of this young and growing organization may answer some core and difficult questions pertaining to innovation in higher education.[MSR-m1]James Madison University (JMU) Clearlyl referenced in abstract and opening paragraph below to explain institutional context as per reviewer request.

Flipping the classrrom in courses of statistics: analyzing the feedback from students

We present the application of the flipped classroom strategy in two subjects of the degree in Statistics (University of Barcelona-Polytechnic University of Catalonia) and analyse the opinion of students about the experience. The objective is to improve the learning process of statistics by promoting a more active attitude of students in the classroom. The new strategy has been welcomed by students, as most of them are satisfied with the experience. Many of them would like that the stratgy would be applied to a significant number of lessons in the subject, or even in other subjects of the degree. Moreover, students think that it helped them to develop their capacity to organize their study time and their self-learning competence. They also think that with the flipped classroom strategy they learn more than with the traditional classes, but they remark the importance of imcluding a session where the teacher answers the questions and solves the doubts of students to ensure a sucessful implementation.

A New perspective to the Process of Education/Communication in the Era of Digital Technologies

This paper aims to discuss the challenges of higher education regarding the relationship between the university and the individual in the era of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). It proposes a new teaching-learning model that allows establishing an educational and transformative communication between university-student. Therefore, it is imperative to consider that technology by itself adds little to the construction of new knowledge and, in this sense, the university can wave towards the establishment of a new paradigm in the education-student relation. In order to justify this proposal, this paper will analyze how the course “Theory and Method of Research in Communication, taught in face-to-face format for the undergraduate students of the School of Communications and Arts of the University of São Paulo, will be converted into a distance-learning course. This conversion will contribute with the formation of new researchers in the scientific field and consequently with the democratization of knowledge. As it can be observed, the mass use of the e-learning modality in Brazil presents itself as a potential tool for consolidating this new teaching-learning model, when associated with the communication process

Asking is not enough. A research study on teaching qualitative interviews in Italy

In the area of social research, it is not uncommon to come across qualitative interviews (transcribed or recorded) that present conduction strategies which seem to be in contrast to that is recommended by the literature on this subject. In order to understand the reason why this occurs, I present the results of a research carried out among Italian sociologists who use qualitative interviews for their research; I try to establish a connection between the conduction strategies used by researchers and their training. I found three different conducting styles, and divided my interviewees into three categories. But, only one of these categories presents a real positive attitude towards qualitative interviews. The problem is that all these researchers also teach qualitative methods at University or train new interviewers for their research and they pass down their same attitude to their students, for better or worse.

Clinically relevant medicine label-based exercises: a friendly bridge between medicinal chemistry and pharmacotherapeutics

Aims. To make the students of Medicinal Chemistry (MC) course for doctor of pharmacy (PharmD) understand how strongly connected the chemical properties of drugs are to their clinical profiles and therapeutics, and determine students’ satisfaction degree. Design. Students in the spring 2013 section of the MC course were taught in a traditional teacher-centered manner. Students in the spring 2015 and 2016 ones had additional guided clinically relevant medicine label-based exercises. They worked in structured self-selected teams and chemically explained the clinical aspects of the selected drugs during oral communication sessions. They were given a 1 to 4 Likert-type scale satisfaction questionnaire, the data were collected and statistically treated. Results. The project was useful to show the connection between the chemical aspects of drugs and their clinical profiles (mean=3.33±0.65) and globally satisfactory (mean=3.07±0.47). The additional didactic material helped the students in the spring 2016 make the most of the MC course (mean=3.38±0.74, p=0.002). Conclusions. Medicine label-based exercises seem to be helpful to understand the connection between medicinal chemistry and pharmacotherapeutics. Feedback from students is generally quite favourable. The approach taken will continue to be modified and expanded.

Educational course "Basics of working with fans" as a factor in the objectification of perception of the 2018 FIFA World Cup and football fans in Russia

The FIFA 2018 World Cup is a significant event for Russian society. Ministries carry out various actions to promote football in the country. The Russian society of sociologists conducted a survey (4703 respondents) to understand the attitude to the Championship. Further, the teachers of the Ural Federal University conducted a survey of the attitude to football fans. Scientists have found that over the past 7 years, citizens have become more positive about fanaticism, but there is a problem of lack of objective information. To solve this problem, teachers at the Institute of physical culture of the Ural Federal University have developed a special course "Basics of working with the fans". The course is designed for students, postgraduates and teachers of physical education departments of universities, as well as stewards and volunteers. Since September 2017, 118 students have been trained in this course. The course consists of two parts: theoretical – describing the types of fans, information about the differences between fans from different countries; practical – reviewing the real situations of interaction with fans, communicating with Russian and foreign fans. Classes are conducted by a sports psychologist who studies football fans for 8 years.