Project description:Situated against the backdrop of a politically fueled ethnic hate between the Northern Region and the rest, this study exposes the relationship between the students' regions of origin and their academic performance in Malawian higher education to contribute to appropriate student support and healthy study habits. Spearman's rHO indicated weak but statistically significant correlations between one's home region and academic performance. Kruskal Wallis Test (N = 20,263) revealed that no single region outperforms others. Thematic analysis of interview data (N = 15) through NVivo revealed that students believe effort matters more in academic performance irrespective of one's region of origin. Implications for education policy that harness healthy study habits to enhance student achievement, retention, and self-efficacy about success are discussed.
Project description:The objective of this study was to compare the performance of pharmacy students from a Pharmaceutical Care course, taught in both distance education (DE) and campus-based formats using active methodologies. For two semesters, students (n = 82) taking the course studied half the subject in the distance education format and half in person. Questionnaires were applied at the beginning of the semester aimed to outline the demographic profile of the students. Their grade in the course was evaluated to determine their performance. The Module 1 (Information on Medication) average on the campus-based was 7.1225 and on DE was 7.5519, (p = 0.117). The Module 2 (Pharmaceutical Services) average on the campus-based was 7.1595 and on distance education was 7.7025, (p = 0.027*). There was a difference in learning outcomes in the Pharmaceutical Care Course between face-to-face and distant education. Therefore, the student performance was better in the distance education module, indicating distance education can be satisfactorily used in Pharmacy Programs.
Project description:This study provides the profiles and success predictions of students considering data before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a field experiment of 396 students and more than 7400 instances, we have analyzed students' performance considering the temporal distribution of autonomous learning during courses from 2016/2017 to 2020/2021. After applying unsupervised learning, results show 3 main profiles from the clusters obtained in the simulations: students who work continuously, those who do it in the last-minute, and those with a low performance in the whole autonomous learning. We have found that the highest success ratio is related to students that work in a continuous basis. However, last-minute working is not necessarily linked to failure. We have also found that students' marks can be predicted successfully taking into account the whole data sets. However, predictions are worse when removing data from the month before the final exam. These predictions are useful to prevent students' wrong learning strategies, and to detect malpractices such as copying. We have done all these analyses taking into account the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic, founding that students worked in a more continuous basis in the confinement. This effect was still present one year after. Finally, We have also included an analysis of the techniques that could be more effective to keep in a future non-pandemic scenario the good habits that were detected in the confinement.
Project description:This paper studies the effects of school reform in Chile, which adopted a nationwide school voucher program along with school decentralization reforms in 1981. Since then, Chile has had a relatively unregulated, competitive market in primary and secondary education. It therefore provides a unique setting in which to study how these reforms affected school attainment and labor market outcomes. This paper develops and estimates a dynamic model of school attendance and work decisions using panel data from the 2002 and 2004 waves of the Encuesta de Protección Social survey. Some individuals in the sample completed their schooling before the voucher reforms were introduced, while others had the option of using the vouchers over part or all of their schooling careers. The impacts of the voucher reform are identified from differences in the schooling and work choices made and earnings returns received by similar aged individuals who were differentially exposed to the voucher system. Simulations based on the estimated model show that the voucher reform significantly increased the demand for private subsidized schools and decreased the demand for both public and nonsubsidized private schools. It increased high school (grades 9-12) graduation rates by 3.6 percentage points and the percentage completing at least two years of college by 2.6 percentage points. Individuals from poor and non-poor backgrounds on average experienced similar schooling attainment gains. The reform also increased lifetime utility and modestly reduced earnings inequality.
Project description:IntroductionWith the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, many medical schools were forced to adopt a virtual learning environment. The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of online-only instruction compared to online and in-person (hybrid) instruction on educational performance, wellbeing, and course satisfaction.MethodsWe performed a descriptive cross-sectional survey of second-year medical students following a transition to online-only and hybrid instruction. Of the 198 total students, we collected 61 responses (42.6% [N = 26] male, 55.7% [N = 34] female, 1.6% [N = 1] preferred not to specify). 49.2% of the participants were in the online-only group. 50.8% of the participants were in the hybrid group.ResultsThere was a significantly lower mean final grade in the online-only group compared to the hybrid group (p = 0.04293). In contrast, there was no significant difference in measures of wellbeing (p = 0.6858) or course satisfaction (p = 0.9332).ConclusionOur study suggests that hybrid instructional delivery may be more effective than online-only instructional delivery for academic performance. However, there was no significant difference in mental wellbeing between either form of teaching. Students report that mental wellbeing was considerably impacted by factors related to the home environment as well as by unique concerns associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. While the online-only model may have been the safest-and only-option for many medical schools during the COVID-19 pandemic, we advise caution in transitioning to a complete online format without carefully designing the online curriculum to account for the negative impact it may have on student education.Supplementary informationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40670-022-01650-6.
Project description:This study was a quantitative meta-analysis of empirical research on the relationship between emotional intelligence (EI) and academic performance (AP) that included the three main theoretical models of EI. We conducted a computerized literature search in the main electronic databases. Forty-four of an initial 3,210 articles met the inclusion criteria. With 49 effect sizes and a cumulative sample size of 19,861 participants, we found significant heterogeneity indices indicating a variety of results. In general, the results of this study indicated a significant effect of EI on AP ( Z¯ = 0.26). Average association between EI and AP was higher in studies measured EI as ability ( Z¯ = 0.31), than studies measured EI as self-report ( Z¯ = 0.24), and self-report mixed EI ( Z¯ = 0.26). In the educational field, this meta-analysis provides information on the specific role of EI as a function of used measures. Some practical implications are discussed.
Project description:Counterproductive academic behaviors (CAB) are a complex phenomenon that affects academic institutions in multiple geographical areas with different cultures, values, and social norms. The high incidence of CAB causes problems of critical importance that transcend the educational domain. The current study aims to contribute to the knowledge of the CAB consequences by focusing on its impact on academic performance (AP). For this purpose, a meta-analysis was conducted in order to examine the relationship between CAB, its facets, and AP. The results show that overall CAB and students' performance are negatively related with a true effect size of ρ = -0.40 (K = 231, N = 127,269). Particularly, absenteeism appeared to be the facet most strongly related to AP (ρ = -0.48, K = 117, N = 69,453). A meta-analytic path analysis model was carried out in order to test the predictive validity of CAB, students' personality characteristics, and intelligence on AP. Results show that conscientiousness and cognitive intelligence have a negative relationship with CAB (β = -0.28 and β = -0.20, respectively), and that conscientiousness, openness to experience, intelligence, and CAB can explain 58% of AP true variance. Meta-analyses of moderator variables and hierarchical meta-analyses are also presented. The implications for research and practice are discussed at the end.
Project description:With the decrease in fertility rate and the extension of life expectancy, China's ageing degree is deepening, and there is a decrease in the number of labor force individuals, leading to an increase in the burden of old-age care and constraining economic growth. The improvement of human capital can promote economic growth. Research is rquired to determine whether factors such as the teacher-student ratio (quality of education) and the average number of years of schooling (quantity of education) can help alleviate the negative impacts of ageing. The findings demonstrate that education, both in terms of quantity and quality, can successfully reduce the detrimental consequences of ageing. The threshold effect model's findings indicate that both the amount and quality of education can be more effective in reducing the negative impacts of ageing when average years of education surpass 10.87 years and the teacher-student ratio hits 7.80 (780 instructors per 1000 pupils). The results of heterogeneity analysis reveal that both the quantity and quality of education could potentially mitigate the negative effects of ageing in the eastern and western regions, although these factors do not seem to have the same effect in the central region. In the northern and southern regions, it is found that while the quantity of education can help alleviate the negative effects of ageing, the quality of education is effective only in the southern region and not in the northern region. Therefore, one potential strategy to counteract the adverse effects of ageing with a declining number of children is to increase the teacher-student ratio and extend the duration of free education.
Project description:The purpose of this article is to understand how academic integrity educational tutorials are administered across Canadian higher education. Results are shared from a survey of publicly funded Canadian higher education institutions (N = 74), including universities (n = 41) and colleges (n = 33), across ten provinces where English is the primary language of instruction. The survey contained 29 items addressing institutional demographic details, as well as academic integrity education questions. Results showed that academic integrity tutorials are inconsistent across Canadian higher education, with further differences evident within the university and college sectors.Supplementary informationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10805-021-09412-6.