Search results for: children with special education needs

Authors: Edward Shizha, Edward Makwarimba

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This literature review explores current research on the educational strengths and barriers of newcomer and refugee youth in Canada. Canada’s shift in immigration policy in the past three decades, from Europe to Asian and African countries as source continents of recent immigrants to Canada, has tremendously increased the ethnic, linguistic, cultural and religious diversity of the population, including that of students in its education system. Over 18% of the country’s population was born in another country, of which 70% are visible minorities. There has been an increase in admitted immigrants and refugees, with a total of 226,203 between July 2020 and June 2021. Newcomer parents and their children in all major destination countries, including Canada, face tremendous challenges, including racism and discrimination, lack of English language skills, poverty, income inequality, unemployment, and underemployment. They face additional challenges, including discrimination against those who cannot speak the official languages, English or French. The severity of the challenges depends on several intersectional factors, including immigrant status (asylum seeker, refugee, or immigrant), age, gender, level of education and others. Through the lens of intersectionality as an explanatory perspective, this literature review examines the educational attainment and outcomes of newcomer and refugee youth in Canada in order to understand their educational needs, educational barriers and strengths. Newcomer youths’ experiences are shaped by numerous intersectional and interconnected sociocultural, sociopolitical, and socioeconomic factors—including gender, migration status, racialized status, ethnicity, socioeconomic class, sexual minority status, age, race—that produce and perpetuate their disadvantage. According to research, immigrants and refugees from visible minority ethnic backgrounds experience exclusions more than newcomers from other backgrounds and groups from the mainstream population. For many immigrant parents, migration provides financial and educational opportunities for their children. Yet, when attending school, newcomer and refugee youth face unique challenges related to racism and discrimination, negative attitudes and stereotypes from teachers and other school authorities, language learning and proficiency, differing levels of acculturation, and different cultural views of the role of parents in relation to teachers and school, and unfamiliarity with the social or school context in Canada. Recognizing discrepancies in educational attainment of newcomer and refugee youth based on their race and immigrant status, the paper develops insights into existing research and data gaps related to educational strengths and challenges for visible minority newcomer youth in Canada. The paper concludes that the educational successes or failures of the newcomer and refugee youth and their settlement and integration into the school system in Canada may depend on where their families settle, the attitudes of the host community and the school officials (teachers, guidance counsellors and school administrators) after-school support programs and their own set of coping mechanisms. Conceivably a unique approach to after-school programming should provide learning supports and opportunities that consider newcomer and refugee youth’s needs, experiences, backgrounds and circumstances. This support is likely to translate into significant academic and psychological well-being of newcomer students.

Keywords: deficit discourse, discrimination, educational outcomes, newcomer and refugee youth, racism, strength-based approach, whiteness

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Authors: Kamille Beye

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Critical thinking is a topic that has been disputed in the field of education for decades, but many resulting debates have centered around strengthening critical thinking capabilities in the societies, workforces, and educational centers of the global north. In contrast, this paper provides an analysis of the teaching of critical thinking in Liberia, which has been ravaged by years of war and a recent Ebola outbreak. These crises have decimated the Liberian education sector, leading to a loss of teaching capacities that are essential to providing critical thinking education. Until recently, critical thinking had no seat at the table when the future needs of the country were discussed by the government and non-governmental agencies. Now, the University of Liberia has a bold goal to become one of the top twenty universities in West Africa in the next seven years, which has led to a focus on teaching critical thinking skills to improve learning. This paper argues that critical thinking is essential to strengthening not only the Liberian education system, but for promoting peace amongst community members, and yet it suggests that commitments to the teaching of critical thinking in Liberia have hitherto been overly superficial. Based on an initial scoping study, this paper will examine the potential impacts of teaching critical thinking skills to undergraduate students in the William V. S. Tubman School of Education at the University of Liberia on continued peacebuilding and reconstruction efforts of the country. The research contends that if critical thinking skills are taught, practiced and continually utilized, teachers and students will have the ability to engage with information and negotiate challenges to solutions in ways that are beneficial to the communities in which they live. The research will use a variety of methods, that include the California Critical Thinking Disposition Inventory. This research will demonstrate that critical thinking skills are not only needed for entering the workforce, but necessary for negotiating and expressing the needs and desires of local communities in a peaceful way.

Keywords: critical thinking, higher education, Liberia, peacebuilding, post-conflict

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Authors: Kristin Lewis, Howard Steele, Anne Murphy, Miriam Steele, Karen Bonuck, Paul Meissner

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The present study examines data collected during the randomized control trial (RCT) of the Group Attachment-Based Intervention (GABI©), a trauma-informed, attachment-based intervention aimed at promoting healthy parent-child relationships that support child development. Families received treatment at Treatment Center and were randomly assigned to either the GABI condition or the treatment as usual condition, a parenting class called Systematic Training for Effective Parenting (STEP). Significant improvements in the parent-child relationship have been reported for families participating in GABI, but not in the STEP control group relying on Coding Interactive Behavior (CIB) as applied to 5-minute video-films of mothers and their toddlers in a free play context. This report considers five additional attachment-relevant 'clinical codes' that were also applied to the 5-minute free play sessions. Seventy-two parent-child dyads (38 in GABI and 34 in STEP) were compared to one another at intake and end-of-treatment, on these five-point dimensions: two-parent codes—the dissociation and ignoring; two child codes—simultaneous display of contradictory behavior and fear; and one parent-child code, i.e., role reversal. Overall, scores were low for these clinical codes; thus, a binary measure was computed contrasting no evidence with some evidence of each clinical code. Crosstab analyses indicate that child fear at end-of-treatment was significantly lower among children who participated in GABI (7% or 3 children) as compared to those whose mothers participated in STEP (29% or 10 children) Chi Sq= 6.57 (1), p < .01. Discussion focuses on the potential for GABI to reduce childhood fearfulness and so enhance the child's health.

Keywords: coding interactive behavior, clinical codes, group attachment based intervention, GABI, attachment, fear

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Authors: S. Saju, G. Thirugnanam

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In this paper, a medical image watermarking algorithm based on contourlet is proposed. Medical image watermarking is a special subcategory of image watermarking in the sense that images have special requirements. Watermarked medical images should not differ perceptually from their original counterparts because clinical reading of images must not be affected. Watermarking techniques based on wavelet transform are reported in many literatures but robustness and security using contourlet are better when compared to wavelet transform. The main challenge in exploring geometry in images comes from the discrete nature of the data. In this paper, original image is decomposed to two level using contourlet and the watermark is embedded in the resultant sub-bands. Sub-band selection is based on the value of Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR) that is calculated between watermarked and original image. To extract the watermark, Kernel ICA is used and it has a novel characteristic is that it does not require the transformation process to extract the watermark. Simulation results show that proposed scheme is robust against attacks such as Salt and Pepper noise, Median filtering and rotation. The performance measures like PSNR and Similarity measure are evaluated and compared with Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) to prove the robustness of the scheme. Simulations are carried out using Matlab Software.

Keywords: digital watermarking, independent component analysis, wavelet transform, contourlet

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Authors: Svetlana Strinyuk, Viacheslav Lanin

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Academic English has become lingua franca for international scientific community which stimulates universities to introduce English for Specific Purposes (EAP) courses into curriculum. Teaching L2 EAP students might be fulfilled with corpus technologies and digital stylistics. A special software developed to reach the manifold task of teaching, assessing and researching academic writing of L2 students on basis of digital stylistics and multidimensional analysis was created. A set of annotations (style markers) – grammar, lexical and syntactic features most significant of academic writing was built. Contrastive comparison of two corpora “model corpus”, subject domain limited papers published by competent writers in leading academic journals, and “students’ corpus”, subject domain limited papers written by last year students allows to receive data about the features of academic writing underused or overused by L2 EAP student. Both corpora are tagged with a special software created in GATE Developer. Style markers within the framework of research might be replaced depending on the relevance and validity of the result which is achieved from research corpora. Thus, selecting relevant (high frequency) style markers and excluding less relevant, i.e. less frequent annotations, high validity of the model is achieved. Software allows to compare the data received from processing model corpus to students’ corpus and get reports which can be used in teaching and assessment. The less deviation from the model corpus students demonstrates in their writing the higher is academic writing skill acquisition. The research showed that several style markers (hedging devices) were underused by L2 EAP students whereas lexical linking devices were used excessively. A special software implemented into teaching of EAP courses serves as a successful visual aid, makes assessment more valid; it is indicative of the degree of writing skill acquisition, and provides data for further research.

Keywords: corpus technologies in EAP teaching, multidimensional analysis, GATE Developer, corpus stylistics

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Authors: Thi Phuong Lan Nguyen

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The English Language Teacher Education (ELTE) in Vietnam is rapidly changing to address the new requirements of the globalization and socialization era. Although there has been a range of investments and innovation in policy and curriculum, tertiary educators and learners do not engage in the enactment. It is vital to understand the practices at the tertiary education level. The study is to understand the higher education curriculum development policy, both in theory and in practice across four representatives of ELTE institutions in the North of Vietnam. The lecturers’ perceptions about the extent to which the enacted curriculum is aligned with national standards will be explored. Nineteen policy documents, seventy surveys, and twelve interviews with lecturers and instructional leaders across these four Vietnamese Northern ELTE institutions have been analyzed to investigate how the policy shape the practice. The two most significant findings are (i) a low level of alignment between curriculum and soft-skills standards of the graduates required by the Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) and (ii) incoherence between current national policy and these institutions’ implementation. In order to address these gaps, it is strongly recommended that curriculum needs to be further developed, focusing more on the institutional outcomes, MOET’s standards, and the social demands in times of globalization. More importantly, professional development in ELTE is vital for a range of curriculum and educational policy stakeholders. The study helps to develop the English teaching profession in Vietnam in a systematic way, from policymakers to implementers, and from instructors to learners. Its significance lies in its relevance to English teaching careers, particularly within the researcher’s specific context, yet also remains relevant to ELTE in other parts of Vietnam and in other EFL (English as a Foreign Language) countries.

Keywords: curriculum, English language teaching education, policy implementation, standard, teaching practice

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Authors: Sawsan J. Al-Husseini

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Transformational leadership (TL) has been found to have an important influence on knowledge and knowledge management (KM). It can contribute to organizational learning, employees’ creativity, encourage followers to participate in educational programs and develop the skills needed to achieve exceptional performance. This research sought to examine the impact of TL on knowledge donating and collecting and the differences between these impacts in public and private higher education institutes (HEIs) in Iraq. A mixed method approach was taken and 580 valid responses were collected to test the causal relationships between the factors, then 12 interviews were conducted with the leaders of HEIs to give more insight of the findings from quantitative stage. Employing structural equation modelling with AMOS v.24, the research found that TL would be ideal in an educational context, promoting knowledge sharing activities in both sectors. The interviews revealed differences between public and private HEIs in terms of the effects relationships. Guidelines are developed for academics as well as leaders and provided evidence to support the use of TL to encourage knowledge sharing activities within higher education in developing countries particularly Iraq.

Keywords: transformational leadership, knowledge sharing, higher education, multi-group

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Authors: Rabia Genc, Aysun Eksioglu, Emine Serap Sarican, Sibel Icke

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Today the habit of cigarette smoking is among one of the most important public health concerns because of the health problems it leads to. The most important and hazardous group to use tobacco and tobacco products is adolescents and teenagers. And one of the most effective ways to prevent them from starting to smoke is education. This research is a kind of educational intervention study which was carried out in order to evaluate the effect of peer education on the teenagers' knowledge about smoking. The research was carried out between October 15, 2013 and September 9, 2015 at Ege University Ataturk Vocational Health School. The population of the research comprised of the students that have been studying at Ege University Atatürk Vocational Health School, Midwifery Department (N=390). The peer educator group that would give training on smoking consisted of 10 people, and the peer groups that would be trained were divided into two groups via simple randomization as experimental group (n=185) and control group (n=185). Questionnaire, information evaluation form, and informed consent forms were used as date collection tools. The analysis of the data which were collected in the study was carried out on Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS 15.0). It was found out that 62.5 % of the students who were in peer educator group had smoked in some period of their lives; however, none of them continued to smoke. When they were asked about their reasons to start smoking, 25% said they just wanted to try it, and 25% of them answered that it was because of their friend groups. When the pre-peer education and post-peer education point averages of peer educator group were evaluated, the results showed that there was a significant difference between the point averages (p < 0.05). When the cigarette use of experimental group and the control group were evaluated, it was clear that 18.2% of the experimental group and 24.2%of the control group still smokes. 9.1% of the experimental group and 14.8% of control group stated that they started smoking because of their friend groups. Among the students who smoke 15.9% of the ones who belongs to the experimental group and 21.9% of the ones who belong to the control group stated they are thinking of quitting smoking. It was clear that there is a significant difference between the pre-education and post-education point averages of experimental group statistically (p ≤ 0.05); however, in terms of control group, there were no significant differences between the pre-test post-test averages statistically. Between the pre-test post-test averages of experimental and control groups there were not any statistically significant differences (p > 0.05). It was found out in the study that the peer education programme is not effective on the smoking habit of Vocational Health School students. When the future studies are being planned in order to evaluate the peer education activity, it can be taken into consideration that the peer education takes a long term and the students in the educator group will be more enthusiastic and a kind of leader in their environment.

Keywords: midwifery, peer, peer education, smoking

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Authors: Aleksandra Bogdanovic, Milicat Tošić Radev, Tatjana Stefanovic Stanojevic

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The aim behind this study was to first analyze the nature and the extent of childhood trauma and existing maladaptive outcomes (internalized and externalized problems and dissociation) among adolescents in the foster system and then analyze the possibility of using traumatic experiences to predict the aforementioned outcomes of childhood trauma. The sample consists of 121 respondents, children, and youths in the care of child protective services, without adequate parental care, residing in temporary foster care families on the territory of Serbia, aged between 11 and 18. The respondents filled out the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire – CTQ, Relationship Questionaire – Clinical version RQ-CV, the Dissociative experience scale for adolescents, A-DES and the Child behavior checklist – youth self-report. The results of the analyses have indicated that physical and emotional neglect are the most frequent forms of maltreatment in early childhood, with a relatively high prevalence of the other individual forms of trauma. Early childhood trauma statistically significantly predicted all the analyzed maladaptive outcomes, explaining approximately 20% of the variance of internalized and externalized problems and dissociation. Recommendations are given for future studies.

Keywords: trauma, maladaptive outcomes, disorganization, dissociation

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Authors: Sabrina N. Jafralie, Arzina Zaver

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Responding to religious diversity and the need for social change, the Ethics and Religious Culture (ERC) Program was introduced as a mandatory subject for all students in Quebec, Canada. Now that the Quebec provincial government has announced the end of the ERC program, it time to discuss and assess both challenges and successes in it's implementation especially its impact on social change. Though many studies have been written around the wider concepts of religious education and religious literacy in the public system, few studies have included voices from educators. Jafralie and Zaver's qualitative research study examines the potentials and struggles of the ERC Program, and by doing so, raise important considerations around the effective teaching of.  The findings point to several consistent themes that teachers grapple with in regards to curriculum and pedagogy and highlights that in-service teachers are not thoroughly prepared to teach about ethics and religion, nor are teacher education programs effectively preparing pre-service teachers entering the field to deal with the complexities of teaching about religion or social change in their classrooms. The authors suggest avenues in which teacher education for teachers can look like in order for students and teachers to engage meaningfully with religious diversity and be agents of social change. 

Keywords: Pedagogy, Professional Development, Quebec, Teaching

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Authors: Kimutai Joan Jepkorir, Moturi Wilkister Nyaora

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The practice of open defecation can be devastating for human health as well as the environment, and this practice persistence could be due to ingrained habits that individuals continue to engage in despite having a better alternative. Safe disposal of human excreta is essential for public health protection. This study sought to find if open defecation relates to fecal-oral infections in Burat and Ngaremara Wards in Isiolo County. This was achieved through conducting a cross-sectional study. Simple random sampling technique was used to select 385 households that were used in the study. Data collection was done by use of questionnaires and observation checklists. The result show that 66% of the respondents disposed-off fecal matter in a safe manner, whereas 34% disposed-off fecal matter in unsafe manner through open defecation. The prevalence proportions per 1000 of diarrhea and intestinal worms among children under-5 years of age were 142 and 21, respectively. The prevalence proportions per 1000 of diarrhea and typhoid among children over-5 years of age were 20 and 20, respectively.

Keywords: faecal-oral infections, open defecation, prevalence proportion, sanitation

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Authors: Abdelaziz Hussien

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This article reports investigations of a study into the effectiveness of a traits cooperative learning (TCL) on teacher candidates’ writing achievement, composition, and attitudes towards traits of writing approach and small group learning. Mixed methodologies were used with the participants in a repeated measures quasi-experimental design. Forty-two class teacher candidates, enrolled in the Bahrain Teachers College, completed the pre and post author-developed measures. The results suggest that TCL has a positive effect on the participants’ writing achievement, composition, and attitudes towards traits of writing approach, but not on the attitudes towards small group learning. Further implications to teacher education are presented.

Keywords: trait-based language education, cooperative learning, writing achievement, writing composition, traits of writing, teacher education

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Authors: Eftychia Pappa, Heleni Vastardis, Christos Rahiotis, Andriani Vazaiou

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The aim of this study was to evaluate the prevalence of dry-mouth symptoms (xerostomia) and compare it with alterations in salivary characteristics of children and adolescents with type 1 diabetes (DM1), as measured with the use of chair-side saliva tests. This study also investigated the possible association between salivary dysfunction and incidence of caries, in relation to the level of metabolic control. A cross-sectional study was performed on young patients (6-18 years old) allocated among 3 groups: 40 patients poorly-controlled (DM1-A, HbA1c>8%), 40 well-controlled (DM1-B, HbA1c≤8%) and 40 age- and sex-matched healthy controls. The study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of University of Athens and the parents signed written informed consent. All subjects were examined for dental caries, oral hygiene and salivary factors. Assessments of salivary function included self-reported xerostomia, quantification of resting and stimulated whole saliva flow rates, pH values, buffering capacity and saliva’s viscosity. Salivary characteristics were evaluated with the use of GC Saliva Check Buffer (3Μ ESPE). Data were analysed by chi-square and Kruskal-Wallis tests. Subjects with diabetes reported xerostomia more frequently than healthy controls (p<0.05). Unstimulated salivary flow rate and pH values remained significantly lower in DM1-A compared to DM1-B and controls. Low values of resting salivary flow rate were associated with a higher prevalence of dental caries in children and adolescents with poorly-controlled DM1 (p<0.05). The results suggested that diabetes-induced alterations in salivary characteristics are indicative of higher caries susceptibility of diabetics and chair-side saliva tests are a useful tool for the evaluation of caries risk assessment.

Keywords: caries risk assessment, saliva diagnostic tests, type 1 diabetes, xerostomia

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Authors: Mohamed M. Elsherbiny, Ahmed T. Helal Ibrahim

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Social isolation is one of the common problems faced visual impaired students especially in new situations. It refers to lack of interactions with others (students, staff members, and others) and dissatisfaction of social networks with others. In addition, it means "a lack of quantity and quality of social contacts". The situation became more complicated if we know that visual impaired students at Sultan Qaboos University were in special schools for the blind completely away from any integration with regular student, which may lead to isolation for being with regular students for the first time. Because the researcher is an academic advisor for all blind students in the College of Arts and Social Sciences at Sultan Qaboos University, he has noted (from the regular meetings with them) some aspects of isolation and many complaints from staff which motivated the researcher to try to alleviate the problem. Logotherapy is an important therapy used in clinical social work with various problems to help children and young people who are facing problems related to the lack of meaning in their life. So, the aim of the therapy is to find meaning in life and to be satisfied with that life. The basic meaning for visual impaired students in this study is to provide opportunities to build relationships and friendships with others and help them to be satisfied about interactions with their networks. The study aimed to identify whether there is a relationship between the use of logotherapy and alleviating social isolation for visual impaired students. This study is considered one of the quasi-experimental studies, the researcher has used experimental method. The researcher used one design which is before and after experiment on two groups, one control (did not apply to the therapy) and experimental group which is applied to the therapy. About the study tools, social isolation scale (SIS) was used to assess the degree of isolation. The sample was (20) of the visually impaired students at the College of Arts and Social Sciences, Sultan Qaboos University. The results showed the effectiveness of logotherapy in alleviating isolation for students.

Keywords: social isolation, logotherapy, visually impaired, disability

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Authors: Chang Li-Yu

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Aims: This study investigates the impact of psychological capital on the mental health of economically disadvantaged youth and examines whether family cohesion acts as a mediating variable between psychological capital and mental health. Methods: The sample for the study was drawn from the "Taiwan Poverty Children's Database: Survey on the Living Trends of Disadvantaged Children and Youth." The data analysis methods included descriptive statistics, confirmatory factor analysis, and structural equation modeling. Results: The results indicated that both psychological capital and family cohesion can significantly negatively predict mental health, with psychological capital significantly positively predicting family cohesion. The mediation effect analysis revealed that family cohesion fully mediates the relationship between psychological capital and mental health, meaning that psychological capital influences mental health through family cohesion. Recommendations: Based on these findings, the study concretely discusses the significance of psychological capital and family cohesion for the mental health of economically disadvantaged youth and offers suggestions for psychological counseling, therapy, and future research.

Keywords: psychological capital, mental health, economically disadvantaged youth, family cohesion

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Authors: Dmitri Terzi

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The article presents the results of an algorithmic study of a special optimization problem of the transport type (traveling salesman problem): 1) To solve the problem, a new natural algorithm has been developed based on the decomposition of the initial data into convex hulls, which has a number of advantages; it is applicable for a fairly large dimension, does not require a large amount of memory, and has fairly good performance. The relevance of the algorithm lies in the fact that, in practice, programs for problems with the number of traversal points of no more than twenty are widely used. For large-scale problems, the availability of algorithms and programs of this kind is difficult. The proposed algorithm is natural because the optimal solution found by the exact algorithm is not always feasible due to the presence of many other factors that may require some additional restrictions. 2) Another inverse problem solved here is to describe a class of traveling salesman problems that have a predetermined optimal solution. The constructed algorithm 2 allows us to characterize the structure of traveling salesman problems, as well as construct test problems to evaluate the effectiveness of algorithms and other purposes. 3) The appendix presents a software implementation of Algorithm 1 (in MATLAB), which can be used to solve practical problems, as well as in the educational process on operations research and optimization methods.

Keywords: traveling salesman problem, solution construction algorithm, convex hulls, optimality verification

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Authors: A. Elbaz, K. Spang

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Infrastructure projects are often subjected to delays and cost overruns and mistakenly described as unsuccessful projects. These projects have many peculiarities such as public attention, impact on the environment, subjected to special regulations, etc. They also deal with several stakeholders with different motivations and face unique risks. With this in mind we need to reconsider our approach to manage them, define their success factors and implement these success factors. Infrastructure projects are not only lacking a unified meaning of project success or a definition of success factors, but also a clear method to implement these factors. This paper investigates this gap and introduces a concept to implement success factors in an efficient way, taking into consideration the specific characteristics of infrastructure projects. This concept consists of six enablers such as project organization, project team, project management workflow, contract management, communication and knowledge transfer and project documentations. These enablers allow other success factors to be efficiently implemented in projects. In conclusion, this paper provides project managers as well as company managers with a tool to define and implement success factors efficiently in their projects, along with upgrading their assets for the coming projects. This tool consists of processes and validated checklists to ensure the best use of company resources and knowledge. Due to the special features of infrastructure projects this tool will be tested in the German infrastructure market. However, it is meant to be adaptable to other markets and industries.

Keywords: infrastructure projects, operative success factors, project success, success factors, transportation projects

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Authors: Restituto I. Rodelas

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The higher education has adopted the outcomes-based education from K-12. In this approach, the teacher uses any teaching and learning strategies that enable the students to achieve the learning outcomes. The students may be required to exert more effort and figure things out on their own. Hence, outcomes-based students are assumed to be more responsible and more capable of applying the knowledge learned. Another approach that the higher education in the Philippines is starting to adopt from other countries is blended learning. This combination of classroom and fully online instruction and learning is expected to be more effective. Participating in the online sessions, however, is entirely up to the students. Thus, the effect of blended learning on the performance of students in Statistics may be mediated by outcomes-based education. If there is a significant positive mediating effect, then blended learning can be optimized by integrating outcomes-based education. In this study, the sample will consist of four blended learning Statistics classes at Jose Rizal University in the second semester of AY 2015–2016. Two of these classes will be assigned randomly to the experimental group that will be handled using outcomes-based education. The two classes in the control group will be handled using the traditional lecture approach. Prior to the discussion of the first topic, a pre-test will be administered. The same test will be given as posttest after the last topic is covered. In order to establish equality of the groups’ initial knowledge, single factor ANOVA of the pretest scores will be performed. Single factor ANOVA of the posttest-pretest score differences will also be conducted to compare the performance of the experimental and control groups. When a significant difference is obtained in any of these ANOVAs, post hoc analysis will be done using Tukey's honestly significant difference test (HSD). Mediating effect will be evaluated using correlation and regression analyses. The groups’ initial knowledge are equal when the result of pretest scores ANOVA is not significant. If the result of score differences ANOVA is significant and the post hoc test indicates that the classes in the experimental group have significantly different scores from those in the control group, then outcomes-based education has a positive effect. Let blended learning be the independent variable (IV), outcomes-based education be the mediating variable (MV), and score difference be the dependent variable (DV). There is mediating effect when the following requirements are satisfied: significant correlation of IV to DV, significant correlation of IV to MV, significant relationship of MV to DV when both IV and MV are predictors in a regression model, and the absolute value of the coefficient of IV as sole predictor is larger than that when both IV and MV are predictors. With a positive mediating effect of outcomes-base education on the effect of blended learning on student performance, it will be recommended to integrate outcomes-based education into blended learning. This will yield the best learning results.

Keywords: outcome-based teaching, blended learning, face-to-face, student-centered

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Authors: Felix Lankester, Alicia Davis, Safari Kinung'hi, Catherine Bunga, Shayo Alkara, Imam Mzimbiri, Jonathan Yoder, Sarah Cleaveland, Guy H. Palmer

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Achieving the London Declaration goal of a 90% reduction in neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) by 2030 requires cost-effective strategies that attain high and comprehensive coverage. The first objective of this trial was to assess the impact on cost and coverage of employing a novel integrative One Health approach linking two NTD control programs: mass drug administration (MDA) for soil-transmitted helminths in humans (STH) and mass dog rabies vaccination (MDRV). The second objective was to compare the coverage achieved by the MDA, a community-wide deworming intervention, with that of the existing national primary school-based deworming program (NSDP), with particular focus on the proportion of primary school-age children reached and their school enrolment status. Our approach was unconventional because, in line with the One Health approach to disease control, it coupled the responsibilities and resources of the Ministries responsible for human and animal health into one program with the shared aim of preventing multiple NTDs. The trial was carried out in hard-to-reach pastoral communities comprising 24 villages of the Ngorongoro District, Tanzania, randomly allocated to either Arm A (MDA and MDRV), Arm B (MDA only) or Arm C (MDRV only). Objective one: The percentage of people in each target village that received treatment through MDA in Arms A and B was 63% and 65%, respectively (χ2 = 1, p = 0.32). The percentage of dogs vaccinated in Arm A and C was 70% and 81%, respectively (χ2 =9, p = 0.003). It took 33% less time for a single person and a dog to attend the integrated delivery than two separate events. Cost per dose (including delivery) was lower under the integrated strategy, with delivery of deworming and rabies vaccination reduced by $0.13 (54%) and $0.85 (19%) per dose, respectively. Despite a slight reduction in the proportion of village dogs vaccinated in the integrated event, both the integrated and non-integrated strategies achieved the target threshold of 70% required to eliminate rabies. Objective two: The percentages of primary school age children enrolled in school that was reached by this trial (73%) and the existing NSDP (80%) were not significantly different (F = 0.9, p = 0.36). However, of the primary school age children treated in this trial, 46% were not enrolled in school. Furthermore, 86% of the people treated would have been outside the reach of the NSDP because they were not primary school age or were primary school age children not enrolled in school. The comparable reach, the substantial reductions in cost per dose delivered and the decrease in participants’ time support this integrated One Health approach to control multiple NTDs. Further, the recorded level of non-enrolment at primary school suggests that, in remote areas, school-based delivery strategies could miss a large fraction of school-age children and that programs that focus delivery solely at the level of the primary school will miss a substantial proportion of both primary school age children as well as other individuals from the community. We have shown that these populations can be effectively reached through extramural programs.

Keywords: canine mediated human rabies, integrated health interventions, mass drug administration, neglected tropical disease, One Health, soil-transmitted helminths

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Authors: Sivia Amado Cordeiro, Bruna Rodrigues, Maria Do Ceu Taveira, Catia Marques, Iris Oliveira, Ana Daniela Silva, Cristina Costa-Lobo

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This work intends to analyse the teaching of Psychology in Portugal and, particularly, the teaching of Career Psychology, reflecting about the changes that have occurred to date. Were analysed the educational offerings of 31 Portuguese higher education institutions, 12 public and 19 private, who teach the course of Psychology. The three degrees of study were considered, namely, bachelors, masters and doctoral. The analysis of the data focused on the curricular plans of the different degrees of studies in Psychology made available online by higher education institutions. Through them, we identified the curricular units with themes related to the teaching of Career Psychology. The results show the existence of 89 higher psychology courses in Portugal, distributed throughout the three degrees of studies. Concerning to the teaching of Career Psychology there were registered 49 curricular units with themes dedicated to this area of knowledge. There were identified 16 curricular units in the bachelor’s degree, 31 in master’s degree, and two in doctoral degree. It was observed a reduction in the number of degrees in Psychology in the last nine years in Portugal. We discuss the current situation of Psychology teaching, particularly the teaching of Career Psychology. The aim is to stimulate reflection about future perspectives of Psychology teaching, and specifically, specialized training in Psychology of Career, in Portugal.

Keywords: career psychology, higher education, psychology, Portugal

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Authors: W. Zekri

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This paper explores Zohra Drif’s memoir, Inside the Battle of Algiers, which narrates her desires as a student to become a revolutionary activist. She exemplified, in her narrative, the different roles, she and her fellows performed as combatants in the Casbah during the Algerian Revolution 1954-1962. This book review aims to evaluate the concept of women’s agency through education and language learning, and its impact on empowering women’s desires. Close-reading method and thematic analysis are used to explore the text. The analysis identified themes that refine the meaning of agency which are social and cultural supports, education, and language proficiency. These themes aim to contribute to the representation in Inside the Battle of Algiers of a woman guerrilla who engaged herself to perform national acts of resistance.

Keywords: agency, education, learning, women

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Authors: Ramón Cruzat, Sergio F. Ochoa, Ignacio Casas, Luis A. Guerrero, José Bravo

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Patients under health treatments that involve long stays at a hospital or health centre (e.g. cancer, organ transplants and severe burns), tend to get bored or depressed because of the lack of social interaction with family and friends. Such a situation also affects the evolution and effectiveness of their treatments. In many cases, the solution to this problem involves extra challenges, since many patients need to rest quietly (or remain in bed) to their being contagious. Considering the weak health condition in which usually are these kinds, keeping them motivated and quiet represents an important challenge for nurses and caregivers. This article presents a mobile ubiquitous game called MagicRace, which allows hospitalized kinds to interact socially with one another without putting to risk their sensitive health conditions. The game does not require a communication infrastructure at the hospital, but instead, it uses a mobile ad hoc network composed of the handheld devices used by the kids to play. The usability and performance of this application was tested in two different sessions. The preliminary results show that users experienced positive feelings from this experience.

Keywords: ubiquitous game, children's emotional support, social isolation, mobile collaborative interactions

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Authors: Farrah Anne Robert, Robert McClelland, Seng Kiat Kok

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Higher education service quality is widely regarded as key factors in the long term success of a higher education institution in attracting and retaining students. This research attempted to establish the impact of service quality on recruiting and retaining students in private higher education institutions (PHEI’s). 501 local and international students responded to a 49 item educational service measure questionnaire from PHEIs in Kuala Lumpur and Selangor, two states in Malaysia which together account for 60% of private colleges in Malaysia. Results from this research revealed that, inter-alia, facilities, employability, management and administration services, academic staff competence, curriculum and student overall experiences were key driving factors in attracting and retaining students. Lack of “campus-like building” facilities and lecturer’s effectiveness in delivering lectures were keys concerns in the provision of service quality by PHEI’s in Malaysia. Over the last decade, the Government of Malaysia has set a target of recruiting 200,000 international students to study in Malaysia by PHEI’s and PHEI’s have failed to achieve this target. This research suggests that service quality issues identified above are impacting efforts to recruit and retain both local and international students by PHEIs. The researcher recommends that further and detailed research be carried on these factors and its impact on recruitment and retention. PHEI administrators can benefit from this research by conducting an evaluation of service measures delivered in their institutions and take corrective measures. Prospective students can benefit from this study by including in their choice factors the “service quality delivery” of PHEI’s when deciding to enroll in a particular PHEI.

Keywords: higher education, recruitment, retention, service quality

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Authors: Carolinda Douglass

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Institutional Effectiveness (IE) is the purposeful integration of functions that foster student success and support institutional performance. IE is growing rapidly within higher education as it is increasingly viewed by higher education administrators as a beneficial approach for promoting data-informed decision-making in campus-wide strategic planning and execution of strategic initiatives. Specific IE tools, including, but not limited to, project management; impactful collaboration and communication; commitment to continuous quality improvement; and accountability through rigorous evaluation; are gaining momentum under the auspices of IE. This research utilizes a case study approach to examine the use of these IE tools, highlight successes of this use, and identify areas for improvement in the implementation of IE tools within higher education. The research includes three case studies: (1) improving upon academic program review processes including the assessment of student learning outcomes as a core component of program quality; (2) revising an institutional vision, mission, and core values; and (3) successfully navigating an institution-wide re-accreditation process. Several methods of data collection are embedded within the case studies, including surveys, focus groups, interviews, and document analyses. Subjects of these methods include higher education administrators, faculty, and staff. Key findings from the research include areas of success and areas for improvement in the use of IE tools associated with specific case studies as well as aggregated results across case studies. For example, the use of case management proved useful in all of the case studies, while rigorous evaluation did not uniformly provide the value-added that was expected by higher education decision-makers. The use of multiple IE tools was shown to be consistently useful in decision-making when applied with appropriate awareness of and sensitivity to core institutional culture (for example, institutional mission, local environments and communities, disciplinary distinctions, and labor relations). As IE gains a stronger foothold in higher education, leaders in higher education can make judicious use of IE tools to promote better decision-making and secure improved outcomes of strategic planning and the execution of strategic initiatives.

Keywords: accreditation, data-informed decision-making, higher education management, institutional effectiveness tools, institutional mission, program review, strategic planning

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Authors: Barzan Hadi Hama Karim

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In recent years, an increasing number of faculties and colleges of basic education are established by the universities and ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research of Iraqi Kurdistan to graduate English teachers to teach in the basic and high schools. One central consideration of this study is to what extent graduate teachers receive adequate preparation from these faculties and college of basic education. An important program which is offered in the department of English language in these colleges and faculties is Viewing and Practicing. The purpose of this research is to explore how students of basic education colleges and faculties are using the program of Viewing and Practicing to support the educational process. This study provides a general framework about educational uses of the program as a pedagogical tool to teach English Language in the basic schools and describes the different perceptions of the students at the final stage of their education. A survey is used to collect responses from a group of students to determine their expectations and perceptions about the program. The results display that the program has several aspects of strengths, such as improving English teaching and speaking proficiency, cultivating subject knowledge related to applied linguistics and promoting research engagement. The findings of the study address the following questions: Is Viewing and Practicing Program beneficial for students to experience English language for future career at schools? To what extent do the students prefer teaching English Language in the schools?

Keywords: teaching experience, viewing and practicing, perception, expectation

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Authors: Godaye Gobena Gomiole

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The purpose of this study was to investigate school context-related factors that affect principals' instructional leadership competence in primary schools in Tarcha Town, Ethiopia. A qualitative case study research design was used. The data were collected through semi-structured interviews and document analysis. Twelve senior principals were included in the study through purposive sampling. Interviews were used to collect in-depth data. The data was analyzed thematically. The findings of the study indicated that primary school principals face both internal and external challenges. Internally, they face limited knowledge and skills, a lack of courage and commitment, and administrative work overload. Their external challenges included negative attitudes from parents and teachers, a lack of instructional materials, and little support from local education authorities. Consequently, they can't serve effectively as instructional leaders or resource people. Based on the findings, it is recommended that the Ministry of Education, South West Regional Education Bureau, Dawuro Zone Education Department, and Tarcha Town Administration Education Officers and Cluster Supervisors regularly monitor and support school leaders and prepare and provide pertinent teaching materials and training so that the principals can lead in the capacity that is appropriate for the position.

Keywords: instructional leadership, primary school, principals, school context related factors

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Authors: E. Gouya Bozorg

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The issue of ranking of sports teams, in particular soccer teams is of primary importance in the professional sports. However, it is still based on classical statistics and models outside of area of mathematics. Rigorous mathematics and then statistics despite the expectation held of them have not been able to effectively engage in the issue of ranking. It is something that requires serious pathology. The purpose of this study is to change the approach to get closer to mathematics proper for using in the ranking. We recommend using theoretical mathematics as a good option because it can hermeneutically obtain the theoretical concepts and criteria needful for the ranking from everyday language of a League. We have proposed a framework that puts the issue of ranking into a new space that we have applied in soccer as a case study. This is an experimental and theoretical study on the issue of ranking in a professional soccer league based on theoretical mathematics, followed by theoretical statistics. First, we showed the theoretical definition of constant number Є = 1.33 or ‘golden number’ of a soccer league. Then, we have defined the ‘efficiency of a team’ by this number and formula of μ = (Pts / (k.Є)) – 1, in which Pts is a point obtained by a team in k number of games played. Moreover, K.Є index has been used to show the theoretical median line in the league table and to compare top teams and bottom teams. Theoretical coefficient of σ= 1 / (1+ (Ptx / Ptxn)) has also been defined that in every match between the teams x, xn, with respect to the ability of a team and the points of both of them Ptx, Ptxn, and it gives a performance point resulting in a special ranking for the League. And it has been useful particularly in evaluating the performance of weaker teams. The current theory has been examined for the statistical data of 4 major European Leagues during the period of 1998-2014. Results of this study showed that the issue of ranking is dependent on appropriate theoretical indicators of a League. These indicators allowed us to find different forms of ranking of teams in a league including the ‘special table’ of a league. Furthermore, on this basis the issue of a record of team has been revised and amended. In addition, the theory of ranking can be used to compare and classify the different leagues and tournaments. Experimental results obtained from archival statistics of major professional leagues in the world in the past two decades have confirmed the theory. This topic introduces a new theory for ranking of a soccer league. Moreover, this theory can be used to compare different leagues and tournaments.

Keywords: efficiency of a team, ranking, special table, theoretical mathematic

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Authors: Atara Shriki, Ilana Lavy

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In a rapidly changing technological society, creativity is considered as an engine of economic and social progress. No doubt the education system has a central role in nurturing all students’ creativity, however, it is normally not encouraged at school. The causes of this reality are related to a variety of circumstances, among them: external pressures to cover the curriculum and succeed in standardized tests that mostly require algorithmic thinking and implementation of rules; teachers’ tendency to teach similarly to the way they themselves were taught as school students; relating creativity to giftedness, and therefore avoid nurturing all students' creativity; lack of adequate learning materials and accessible tools for following and evaluating the development of students’ creativity; and more. Since success in academic studies requires, among other things, creativity, lecturers in higher education institutions should consider appropriate ways to nurture students’ creative thinking and assess its development. Obviously, creativity has a multifaceted nature, numerous definitions, various perspectives for studying its essence (e.g., process, personality, environment, and product), and several approaches aimed at evaluating and assessing creative expressions (e.g., cognitive, social-personal, and psychometric). In this framework, we suggest nurturing students’ creativity through engaging them in problem posing activities that are part of inquiry assignments. In order to assess the development of their creativity, we propose to employ a model that was designed for this purpose, based on the psychometric approach, viewing the posed problems as the “creative product”. The model considers four measurable aspects- fluency, flexibility, originality, and organization, as well as a total score of creativity that reflects the relative weights of each aspect. The scores given to learners are of two types: (1) Total scores- the absolute number of posed problems with respect to each of the four aspects, and a final score of creativity; (2) Relative scores- each absolute number is transformed into a number that relates to the relative infrequency of the posed problems in student’s reference group. Through converting the scores received over time into a graphical display, students can assess their progress both with respect to themselves and relative to their reference group. Course lecturers can get a picture of the strengths and weaknesses of each student as well as the class as a whole, and to track changes that occur over time in response to the learning environment they had generated. Such tracking may assist lecturers in making pedagogical decisions about emphases that should be put on one or more aspects of creativity, and about the students that should be given a special attention. Our experience indicates that schoolteachers and lecturers in higher education institutes find the combination of engaging learners in problem posing along with self-assessment of their progress through utilizing the graphical display of accumulating total and relative scores has the potential to realize most learners’ creative potential.

Keywords: creativity, problem posing, psychometric model, self-assessment

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Authors: Per Blomqvist

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The overall aim of this study is to highlight how the degree project-course in teacher education has developed over time at Swedish universities, above all regarding changes in the formative assessment practices in relation to student's opportunities to take part in writing processes that can develop both their independent critical thinking, subject knowledge, and academic writing skills. Theoretically, the study is based on deliberative and transformative perspectives of teaching academic writing in higher education. The deliberative perspective is motivated by the fact that it is the universities and their departments' responsibility to give the students opportunities to develop their academic writing skills, while there is little guidance on how this can be implemented. The transformative perspective is motivated by the fact that education needs to be adapted to the student's prior knowledge and developed in relation to the student group. Given the academisation of education and the new student groups, this is a necessity. The empirical data consists of video recordings of teacher groups' conversations at three Swedish universities. The conversations were conducted as so-called collective remembering interviews, a method to stimulate the participants' memory through social interaction, and focused on addressing issues on how the degree project-course in teacher education has changed over time. Topic analysis was used to analyze the conversations in order to identify common descriptions and expressions among the teachers. The result highlights great similarities in how the degree project-course has changed over time, both from a deliberative and a transformative perspective. The course is characterized by a “strong framing,” where the teachers have great control over the work through detailed instructions for the writing process and detailed templates for the text. This is justified by the fact that the education has been adapted based on the student teachers' lack of prior subject knowledge. The strong framing places high demands on continuous discussions between teachers about, for example, which tools the students have with them and which linguistic and textual tools are offered in the education. The teachers describe that such governance often leads to conflicts between teachers from different departments because reading and writing are always part of cultural contexts and are linked to different knowledge, traditions, and values. The problem that is made visible in this study raises questions about how students' opportunities to develop independence and make critical judgments in academic writing are affected if the writing becomes too controlled and if passing students becomes the main goal of education.

Keywords: formative assessment, academic writing, degree project, higher education, deliberative perspective, transformative perspective

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Authors: Sakine Sincer

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In today’s world, which takes further steps towards globalization each and every day, societies and cultures are re-shaped while the demands of the changing world are described once more. In this atmosphere, where the speed of change sometimes reaches a terrifying point, it is possible to state that effective leaders are needed more than ever in order to meet the above-stated needs and demands. The question of what effective leadership is keeping its importance on the agenda. Most of the answers to this question has mostly focused on the approach of distributed leadership recently. This study aims at analyzing the applicability of distributed leadership, which is accepted to be an example of effective leadership that can meet the needs of global world, which is changing more and more rapidly nowadays, at higher education institutions in Turkey. Within the framework of this study, first of all, the historical development of distributed leadership is addressed, and then a theoretical framework is drawn for this approach by means of underlying what distributed leadership is and is not. After that, different points of view about the approach are laid out within the borders of opinions expressed by Gronn and Spillane, who are accepted to be the most famous advocators of distributed leadership. Then, exemplar practices of distributed leadership are included in the study before drawing attention to the strengths and weaknesses of this approach. Lastly, the applicability of distributed leadership at higher education institutions in Turkey is analyzed. This study is carried out with the method of literature review by resorting to first- and second-hand sources on distributed leadership.

Keywords: globalization, school leadership, distributed leadership, higher education, management

Procedia PDF Downloads 388