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University Course (university + course)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Humanities and Social Sciences	50%
Medical Sciences	37%

Selected Abstracts

On the Background and Motivation of Students in a Beginning Spanish Program

FOREIGN LANGUAGE ANNALS, Issue 5 2002
Article first published online: 9 SEP 2010, Paul B. Mandell
ABSTRACT: A number of recent articles have examined the motivation, purpose of study, and demographics of first- and second-year language learners of French or Spanish (see, e.g., Ossipov, 2000; Rava, 2000; Voght, 2000; Wen, 1997) This study surveyed the make-up of a sample of first-and second-year university-level Spanish learners at a major postsecondary institution in a city with a substantial, growing population of monolingual and bilingual Spanish speakers. The results of the survey were used to address questions about learner preparation prior to entering a four-year university course of study, preferred and desired activities in the current curriculum, and motivations for the study of Spanish. Generalizations about the nature of the typical learner in this context and the implications of the appreciation of and desire for grammar-related and communicative activities , as expressed by the respondents , in the contemporary liberal arts curriculum are discussed. [source]

An ESOL Methods Course in a Latino Neighborhood

FOREIGN LANGUAGE ANNALS, Issue 4 2002
Thomas C. Cooper
ABSTRACT: This article describes a model for situating an ESOL methods course in a Spanish-speaking community. The methods course had two specific goals: (1) to organize ESOL classes for children and adults in a Latino neighborhood that serve as a practicum for university students working for an ESOL teaching endorsement and (2) to include a service-learning project in the methods course so that the university students can become acquainted with the milieu of the children growing up in a Latino community. While it is not a difficult task to place an ESOL methods course in an ethnic neighborhood, the amount of planning and organization required exceeds to some degree the preparation necessary for a traditional university course held on campus. The rewards, however, far outweigh the extra effort, because the university students benefit from gaining actual ESOL teaching experience as they learn about an ethnic neighborhood, and the community residents benefit from the collaboration between the university and their neighborhood. [source]

Research utilisation among Swedish dental hygienists

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF DENTAL HYGIENE, Issue 1 2004
K Öhrn
Dental hygienists have to practise evidence-based decision making in the future, which means that actively seeking and utilising research findings will become more important. Objective: The objective of this study was to explore barriers to and facilitators of research utilisation in clinical practice among Swedish dental hygienists. Methods: The study was a descriptive, comparative cross-sectional survey including a random sample of 491 dental hygienists in Sweden. The response rate was 62%. A validated questionnaire covering different aspects of participation in research, support for and availability of research, and research utilisation was employed. Results: The most common research-related activities were: reading research projects in professional journals, 83%; participating in clinical audit, 67%; and sharing research findings with their own professional colleagues, 65%. The most commonly reported available research-related resources were computer services to access the internet, which was true for 84%. A total of 31% reported exploring how research findings can be used in clinical settings as the best help to make research more useful. The most reported item that discouraged dental hygienists the most from using research in clinical practice was time limitation (42%). Dental hygienists with continuing education university courses reported a higher activity in seeking new research and more support and available research-related activities than those without a university course. Dental hygienists with a 2-year education reported a more positive attitude towards research and rated their own research utilisation in clinical practice higher than those with a 1-year education. Dental hygienists educated at universities without a dental school reported a more positive attitude towards research and rated their own research utilisation in clinical practice higher than those who were educated in connection with a dental school. Dental hygienists working in public dental care reported higher activity in seeking new research and rated their own research utilisation in clinical practice higher than those working in private dental offices. Conclusions: There is a need for continuing education in evidence-based dental hygiene. The length of the education is important, and a more comprehensive education support research utilisation. [source]

Explicating Benner's concept of expert practice: intuition in emergency nursing

JOURNAL OF ADVANCED NURSING, Issue 4 2008
Joy Lyneham
Abstract Title.,Explicating Benner's concept of expert practice: intuition in emergency nursing. Aim., This paper is a report of a study exploring the experience of intuition in emergency nursing in relation to Benner's fifth stage of practice development, ,the expert practitioner.' Background., Expert nurses anecdotally report actions and thoughts that present in their consciousness and have an impact on the care given. Benner used the term ,intuition' for the fifth stage of practice development. However, Paley has criticized Benner's model for its lack of clarity about the nature of an expert practitioner. This criticism is further justified by Benner's inadequate explanation of expert. Method., A hermeneutic phenomenological study was conducted using van Manen's approach and a Gadamerian analysis. Fourteen expert emergency nurses in Australia were interviewed between January 2000 and December 2003. Findings., The analysis resulted in the reconstruction of Benner's expert stage into three distinct phases: cognitive intuition, where assessment is processed subconsciously and can be rationalized in hindsight; transitional intuition, where a physical sensation and other behaviours enter the nurse's awareness; and embodied intuition, when the nurse trusts the intuitive thoughts. Conclusion., The findings validate the use of intuitive decision-making as a construct in explaining expert clinical decision-making practices. The validity of intuitive practice should be recognized. It is essential to recognize the conditions that support practice development, and in the prenovice stage (during their university course) factors such as reflection, research (in its broadest sense) and clinical curiosity should be fostered. [source]

Simulated Computer-Mediated/Video-Interactive Distance Learning: A Test of Motivation, Interaction Satisfaction, Delivery, Learning & Perceived Effectiveness

JOURNAL OF COMPUTER-MEDIATED COMMUNICATION, Issue 3 2001
Ruth Guzley
This paper reports on an innovative, computer-mediated, educational technology application in a simulated distance learning environment. As an initial evaluation, real student groups completed an entire university course using this state-of-the-art, two-way synchronous audio/visual communication technology, Distributed Tutored Video Instruction (DTVI). The study reported here explored student perceptions of a simulated distance learning environment using the system. The learning environment was characterized by videotaped lectures by the course instructor, delivered in computer-mediated small group settings. Six separate groups made up of six to eight students and a facilitator were studied. Group members were in separate locations, interacting via synchronous audio and visual computer channels. Our findings indicate an overall high level of perceived effectiveness and satisfaction with the instructional mode. In addition, significant relationships were established between facilitator effectiveness and student satisfaction, student motivation and class participation, student exam grades and perceived amount of group discussion. Findings indicate innovations in computer-mediated instructional designs can achieve desired levels of participant interaction considered critical to effective distance education technology. [source]

Cardiovascular measures independently predict performance in a university course

PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGY, Issue 3 2010
Mark D. Seery
Abstract The factors that predict academic performance are of substantial importance yet are not understood fully. This study examined the relationship between cardiovascular markers of challenge/threat motivation and university course performance. Before the first course exam, participants gave speeches on academics-relevant topics while their cardiovascular responses were recorded. Participants who exhibited cardiovascular markers of relative challenge (lower total peripheral resistance and higher cardiac output) while discussing academic interests performed better in the subsequent course than those who exhibited cardiovascular markers of relative threat. This relationship remained significant after controlling for two other important predictors of performance (college entrance exam score and academic self-efficacy). These results have implications for the challenge/threat model and for understanding academic goal pursuit. [source]

Early modern stereotypes and the rise of English: Jonson, Dryden, Arnold, Eliot

CRITICAL QUARTERLY, Issue 3 2006
NICHOLAS McDOWELL
Stereotyping is a mode of stigmatisation and polarisation, and so we tend to think of the stereotype as a deadening force which closes down conversation. But we need to appreciate further the extent to which the transmission of stereotypes can facilitate and shape creative cultural response, even if that response is designed to simplify and satirise in the service of an ideological imperative. The stereotype of the Puritan as ignoramus in Ben Jonson's seventeenth-century comedies reappears in, and helps to structure, aesthetic discussions over three centuries, beginning with Dryden's post-Restoration literary criticism. These discussions were central to the generation of a dominant narrative of English literary history, to the development of notions of literary refinement and politeness and to the construction of a literary canon. Incorporated by Matthew Arnold and T. S. Eliot into their versions of literary history - versions which were themselves a response to what Arnold and Eliot perceived as the cultural crises of their own time - early modern dramatic stereotypes became naturalised in university courses and school textbooks. Ultimately, this essay suggests, the transmission of the early modern stereotype of the Puritan was bound up with the rise of English as an academic discipline. [source]