Surfing or still drowning? Student nurses’ Internet skills

A study into student nurses’ ability to use the Internet was published in Nurse Education Today in 2004. This paper repeats the research with a cohort of students starting their pre-registration programme in a UK university in 2007. In 2004 students were reported as having poor Internet skills, and as not being frequent users of the Internet. In this study students were found to have significantly better ability to carry out basic tasks and significantly higher levels of Internet use. Their ability to apply these skills to more complex information literacy tasks however had not increased, with more than half of all students saying they found far too much irrelevant information when searching for specific information on the Internet. The earlier study found that skills and age were not related, which appears to still be the case. The need for these skills is increasing as education, lifelong learning, and patient information are all increasingly drawing on the developing Internet. Nurse education however is not integrating the skill and knowledge base essential to support this into pre-registration programmes, and the evidence suggests that this will not happen without active management

Towards a strategy for the introduction of information and computer literacy (ICL) courses

An important goal of the national policy on computers in education in the Netherlands is the familiarization of all citizens with information technology. This policy was a plea for some basic education in information and computer literacy. In the beginning of the implementation of this basic education for all a national survey (about grassroots developments) in Dutch junior secondary education was executed (Spring, 1984) with the following objectives: (i) to collect information which can serve as a baseline for the evaluation of future developments and (ii) to perform a context analysis to provide policy makers, innovation planners and curriculum developers with information about the state-of-the-art on information and computer literacy in the schools. The survey instruments were partly developed with as underlying structure some of the factors which are influencing the implementation of educational changes. The instruments were submitted to a sample of 462 schools representing the different types of junior secondary schools. Variation between the schools was obtained by distinguishing different levels of involvements of schools in information and computer literacy. This paper analyses how far in the schools, which are experimenting with information and computer literacy on their own initiative, some of the implementation factors of Fullan are fulfilled. Based upon this analysis a recommendation for a policy strategy for introducing this new domain in the schools is formulated

Tapping into the Potential of Peer Tutors

13-16 July 2002 A challenge facing all medical schools is how to ensure that all students have the skills they need to cope with the demands of their curriculum. Computer literacy is no longer optional - all students from day one need to be able to communicate by email, look up information about the timetable on the intranet, and use an elibrary. As well as they are expected to use standard software to prepare assignments, projects, and group presentation. For the past four years we have run a highly successful peer tutoring project to ensure that those who arrive without the necessary skills have the support they require. This paper will report on the methods (how we recruit and train the peer tutors and how we identify those who need help, how we deliver the training), the costs and the outcomes. We now have data on the IT skills of 1,5000 students

A review of the research literature relating to ICT and attainment

Summary of the main report, which examined current research and evidence for the impact of ICT on pupil attainment and learning in school settings and the strengths and limitations of the methodologies used in the research literature

When do we eat? An evaluation of food items input into an electronic monitoring application

We present a formative study that examines what, when, and how participants in a chronic kidney disease (stage 5) population input food items into an electronic intake monitoring application. Participants scanned food item barcodes or voice recorded food items they consumed during a three week period. The results indicated that a learning curve was associated with barcode scanning; participants with low literacy skills had difficulty describing food items in voice recordings; and participants input food items depending on when they had dialysis treatment. Participants thought this electronic self monitoring application would be helpful for chronically ill populations in their first year of treatmen

Relationship between financial literacy and financial distress among youths in Malaysia - an empirical study

This paper examines the relationship between the levels of financial literacy and financial distress among Malaysian youths. A quantitative approach was adopted to determine the relationship between variables of financial literacy and those of financial distress. Questionnaires from previous studies were used to determine the levels of financial literacy and financial distress of 430 youths. The findings show that the levels of respondents’ financial distress and financial literacy were moderate. The study also shows that there is a positive but weak relationship between financial literacy and level of financial distress. The implications of the study points to the fact that the organizations concerned would do well to invest in human resources, in particular, with respect to personal financial management for their employees as such knowledge investment would help raise the level of financial literacy among employees and achieve the organisations’ own objectives of high productivity. This is evidenced in previous studies that indicated that financial distress was one of the factors leading to reduced productivity at the workplace. As such this investment in reducing the employees’financial distress by way of enhancing their financial literacy would serve, in the long run, to improve the effectiveness of the country’s delivery system, especially in the public service