Civil engineering 4 real (CE4R): co-curricular learning for undergraduates

Vocational disciplines such as engineering provide an ideal opportunity for contextualising the curriculum. The provision of co-curricular activities can stimulate students to assimilate their prior knowledge and skills whilst enhancing employability attributes. Team-based co-curricular activities linked to problem-based learning can offer students a quasi-authentic experience of engineering practice. In this paper, we provide a case study of a successful co-curricular initiative supported by local civil engineering employers. Civil Engineering 4 Real (CE4R) are evening workshops facilitated by practicing engineers, where student attendance is voluntary. Students use authentic documentation and collaborate in peer learning to solve industrial problems. CE4R has assisted student’s anticipatory socialisation into their disciplinary profession. However, further research is required to establish the cognitive legacy that students gain from attending CE4R. There is also a need to explore the synergy that could be prompted through understanding the boundaries between CE4R and the programme curriculum

The challenges of safety and community integration for vulnerable individuals

Although community inclusion brings a number of advantages for vulnerable individuals, it can also entail a range of challenges, and draws in issues of safety and security. This qualitative psychological study, therefore, aimed to explore the challenges being faced by two groups of vulnerable individuals: those with intellectual disabilities and dementia, and how these could be addressed in order to establish a community that is safe and welcoming for all. Interviews and focus groups were conducted with a range of community stakeholders—for instance, local businesses, residents, and individuals with intellectual disabilities, dementia and their carers—and data was thematically analysed to explore the issue of inclusion and participation particularly in relation to stigma and prejudice, self-worth, social isolation and feeling safe. As well as highlighting practical issues regarding inclusion and support, the work emphasised the psychological dimension, linking to a multi-faceted conception of community participation. While significant work is already addressing issues of risk and safety for vulnerable populations (such as “Keep Safe” schemes), the work described here leads to an alternative conceptualization, tied to notions of kindness in communities with a view to crafting communities capable of safely welcoming a wider variety of marginalized groups

The management of missing categorical data : comparison of multiple imputation and subset correspondence analysis.

Doctor of Philosophy in Applied Statistics, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Westville, 2015.Missing data is a common problem in research and the manner in which this ‘missingness’ is managed, is crucial to the validity of analysis outcomes. This study illustrates the use of two diverse methods to handle, in particular, missing categorical data. These methods are applied to a set of data which intended to identify relationships between asthma severity in children and environmental, behavioural, genetic and socio-economic factors. This dataset suffered from substantial missingness. The first method involved the application of two approaches to multiple imputation, each adopting different distributional specifications. A practical challenge, previously undocumented, was encountered in the application of multiple imputation when interactions, to be identified and included in the analysis model, were needed for the imputation model. This study found that by imputing a single set of complete data using the expectation maximization (EM) algorithm for covariance matrices, it was possible to identify relevant interactions for inclusion in the imputation model. The second method illustrated the application of correspondence analysis to a subset of the data that includes only the measured data categories. The application of subset correspondence analysis (s-CA) with incomplete data, as well as its sensitivity to the type of missingness, has not been well documented, if at all. There is also no evidence of research in which interactions have been added to an analysis with s-CA. In this study its use, both with and without interactions, was illustrated and the results, when compared to those from the multiple imputation approach, were found to be similar and favourably complementary. A simulation study found that s-CA performed well with any type of missingness, provided the amount of missingness is less than 30% on any variable with incomplete data. Across all analyses, relationships found between asthma severity and factors were consistent with known relationships, thus providing confirmation of the reliability of the methods

Qualitative evaluation of a practice-based experience pilot program for master of pharmacy students in Scotland

Objective. To determine the views of pharmacists in central Scotland regarding experiential education for MPharm students. Methods. A thematic analysis was completed by Ms. Gillian Hendry and Dr. Sally Wiggins of interviews conducted with ten practicing pharmacists paired with first-year master of pharmacy (MPharm) students during the 2011-2012 academic year. Relevant comments from the interviews were manually sorted in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet to bring similarly themed material together to facilitate the identification and naming of recurring themes and subthemes. Results. The pharmacists were unanimous in their opinion that experiential education was valuable for MPharm students and, in particular, that it helped students to develop self-confidence. The pharmacists derived personal satisfaction in developing mentor/mentee relationships with students. They also recognized the value that students provided to the workforce as well as the educational value to themselves in supervising students. The participants’ primary dissatisfaction was that the pharmacy workflow limited the time they could spend mentoring students. Conclusion. The results provide guidance to the academic community and the pharmacy practice community in the United Kingdom (UK) regarding the design and integration of experiential education courses in MPharm degree programs

Eliciting student teacher's views on educational research to support practice in the modern diverse classroom: a workshop approach

Teachers’ professionalism includes using educational research to support their work in the modern diverse classroom. Student teachers’ views as they enter the profession are therefore important. Within a Higher Education Academy social science priority research strand, ‘Supporting research-informed teacher education in a changing policy environment’, this study developed workshops to ascertain student teachers’ views on educational research, preparing materials suitable for primary and secondary sectors. These could be updated, and used by other higher education courses. Face-to-face or email workshops asked participants about their current uses of educational research, and to read and comment upon one policy research extract and one ‘what works’ research review. Small-scale piloting suggested the workshops readily elicited views, and students identified some personal changes following participation. Participants were generally unfamiliar with the principles of ‘what works’ research. Thematic analysis suggested students considered educational research was often inaccessible, but wanted accessible research to inform their practice

Enhancing Employability Through a Multi-Disciplinary Approach to Graduate Attributes: Embedding Engagement and Developing Self-Efficacy in Pre-Honours Undergraduates

There is increasing emphasis on the importance of making Graduate Attributes (GAs) explicit to students as part of their degree programme and the role of students themselves in proactively developing GAs (HEA 2015). However, it can be challenging to engage students in non-core activities in large pre-honours classes, and the success of employability activities are also subject to efficacy beliefs and personal qualities (Yorke & Knight, 2007). A further issue is how we embed employability whilst accounting for the specific needs of the subject discipline and linkages with university careers services (O’Leary 2016). The aim of the present project was to work in partnership with careers professionals and students in reflecting on how curricular and extra-curricular activities can develop graduate attributes throughout the degree programme (Daniels & Brooker, 2014). To this end we extended our work with psychology undergraduates (Swingler et al., 2016), by developing and evaluating short-self-reflection in class exercises for pre-honours psychology, earth sciences, and business school undergraduates, which asked students to reflect on their curricular and extra-curricular activities and how the practical skills gained from these activities are linked to graduate attributes. Class activities were followed by discipline specific careers workshops and alumni events, focused on gaining confidence in communicating graduate attributes in an interview context, and the benefits of engaging with professional networking sites. Analysis of our quantitative and qualitative data will focus on: 1) students’ levels of self-efficacy in specific GAs before and after the in-class exercises; 2) Contrasting self-efficacy in specific GAs between subject disciplines; 3) the relationship between self-efficacy in specific GAs and academic self-efficacy (Yorke & Knight, 2007) and self-esteem (Rosenberg, 1965). 4) Student intentions to further develop their GAs after attending the careers workshops and alumni events. The findings will inform participants about the benefits and challenges of embedding GAs and employability in the pre-honours curriculum and include perspectives from students and staff

Cookie Cutting or Gaining a Broader Perspective? Embedding Graduate Attributes in the Curriculum

Objectives: The aim of this project was to increase student awareness of graduate attributes (GAs) at an early stage in their undergraduate career by embedding graduate attribute reflection activities within Level 2 Psychology. Design: Students reflected on how skills gained from their curricular and extra-curricular activities were linked to graduate attributes. Study 1 evaluated the impact of the reflection task by measuring selfefficacy in specific GAs. Study 2 used a mixed-methods design to explore student perspectives on the activities and their views on GAs. Methods: Study 1: Participants were second year psychology undergraduates at the University of Glasgow (N=107). Self-efficacy in each of the dimensions of the University of Glasgow GAs Framework was measured before and after the reflection task, along with measures of self-efficacy in higher education and self-esteem. Study 2: Participants (N= 178) from the same cohort completed the Employability Experience Questionnaire followed by questions about the GAs reflection exercise and their intentions. These questions were discussed in detail in student led focus groups (N= 9). Results: Study 1: Non Parametric analyses indicated that self-efficacy in specific GAs increased after the reflection exercises, and were positively correlated to H.E self-efficacy, and self-esteem. Study 2: Qualitative analysis elicited themes on the “Value of GAs”, “Practicalities”, and “Looking to the Future”. Conclusions: Embedding a GAs reflection task within the psychology curriculum improved students’ self-efficacy, and motivated them to seek further opportunities. Limitations of the design, and implications for skills development in the psychology degree will be discussed