Development and evaluation of an intervention to improve further education students' understanding of higher education assessment criteria: three studies

Three studies about helping Further Education students prepare for study at universityThis paper reports three studies about preparing Further Education (FE) students for the transition to Higher Education (HE) by improving their understanding of HE assessment criteria. In study 1, students and tutors in both FE and HE were interviewed for a qualitative analysis of their understandings and expectations about assessment criteria. In study 2, students in FE and HE completed questionnaires measuring self-rated understanding and ability about assessment criteria, and beliefs about essay writing. Studies 1 and 2 both showed that FE students were more confident than HE students about their understanding and ability in relation to assessment criteria, but FE students’ understandings suggested more surface approaches to learning and more naïve epistemological beliefs. In study 3, a workshop intervention to improve FE students’ understandings of HE assessment criteria was evaluated in a comparative longitudinal trial. The intervention reduced FE students’ self-rated understanding and ability, and promoted more sophisticated beliefs about essay writing, by comparison with students who received standard tuition. We concluded that interventions to develop more realistic understandings of what is required in academic writing could be used to prepare FE students more effectively for the transition to HE

Cognitive and mood effects in healthy children during 12 weeks' supplementation with multi-vitamin/minerals

Adequate levels of vitamins and minerals are essential for optimal neural functioning. A high proportion of individuals, including children, suffer from deficiencies in one or more vitamins or minerals. This study investigated whether daily supplementation with vitamins/minerals could modulate cognitive performance and mood in healthy children. In this randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel groups investigation, eighty-one healthy children aged from 8 to 14 years underwent laboratory assessments of their cognitive performance and mood pre-dose and at 1 and 3 h post-dose on the first and last days of 12 weeks' supplementation with a commercially available vitamins/mineral product (Pharmaton Kiddi). Interim assessments were also completed at home after 4 and 8 weeks at 3 h post-dose. Each assessment comprised completion of a cognitive battery, delivered over the Internet, which included tasks assessing mood and the speed and accuracy of attention and aspects of memory (secondary, semantic and spatial working memory). The vitamin/mineral group performed more accurately on two attention tasks: 'Arrows' choice reaction time task at 4 and 8 weeks; 'Arrow Flankers' choice reaction time task at 4, 8 and 12 weeks. A single task outcome (Picture Recognition errors) evinced significant decrements at 12 weeks. Mood was not modulated in any interpretable manner. Whilst it is possible that the significant improvements following treatment were due to non-significant numerical differences in performance at baseline, these results would seem to suggest that vitamin/mineral supplementation has the potential to improve brain function in healthy children. This proposition requires further investigation

Does acute exposure to mobile phones affect human attention?

Recent studies have indicated that acute exposure to low level radiofrequency (RF) electromagnetic fields generated by mobile phones affects human cognition. However, the relatively small samples used, in addition to methodological problems, make the outcomes of these studies difficult to interpret. In our study we tested a large sample of volunteers (168) using a series of cognitive tasks apparently sensitive to RF exposure (a simple reaction task, a vigilance task, and a subtraction task). Participants performed those tasks twice, in two different sessions. In one session they were exposed to RFs, with half of subjects exposed to GSM signals and the other half exposed to CW (continuous wave) signals, while in the other session they were exposed to sham signals. No significant effects of RF exposure on performance for either GSM or CW were found, independent of whether the phone was positioned on the left or on the right side. Questo è l’abstract del lavoro. Non è 201 parole, ma di solito le riviste non vogliono più di 150 parole. Ora aggiungo solo una lista di parole (lettere) per raggiungere e superare questo limite minimo del VQR Cordialmente Riccardo Russo A a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a