A study of faculty development programs in India to improve student engagement

Student engagement refers to the degree of awareness, curiosity and interest that students show in their formal educational environment, which also reflects their motivation for learning and academic achievements. There has been lot of research about how to build a positive climate for learning, improve student curiosity, and enhance classroom association. The research findings are unambiguous. Student learning, persistence, and attainment in educational institutes are strongly associated with student engagement. In India, a project named Mission 10x has been started by an esteemed IT Corporation Wipro as a faculty development programme (FDP) that particularly focus on elements that can lead to improvement in student engagement. This paper presents a study of these FDPs and examines (1) the parameters that affect student engagement (2) the extent to which student engagement is improved after the conduct of Mission 10x FDPs, and (3) whether institutions differ in terms of their ability to convert student engagement into academic performance via these FDPs. The sample consisted of 2,236 students at 6 four-year engineering colleges and universities that completed several FDPs during 2012-2014. Many measures of student engagement were linked positively with such FDPs, although some of the relationships were weak in strength. The results suggest that the lowest-ability students were more benefitted after conducting these FDPs and application of novel approaches in conducting classes. Also, different forms of engagement are converted into academic achievement, and certain institutions convert student engagement into higher performance on critical thinking tests more effectively

Revealing charge carrier dynamics in squaraine: [6,6]-phenyl-C 71-butyric acid methyl ester based organic solar cells

Ultrafast charge carrier dynamics as well as the generation of polaron pair in squaraine (SQ) and squaraine:[6,6]-phenyl-C 71-butyric acid methyl ester (SQ:PCBM71) have been studied using ultrafast transient absorption spectroscopy (UTAS). The current study reveals that the pure SQ exhibits the creation of singlet and triplet states; however, incorporation of PCBM71 in SQ results in the formation of polaron pairs with similar to 550ps lifetime, which in turn leads to the creation of free electrons in the device. We show that the considerable increment in monomolecular and bimolecular recombination in SQ:PCBM71 compared to pure SQ which describes the interfacial compatibility of SQ and PCBMC71 molecules. The present work not only provides the information about the carrier generation in SQ and SQ:PCBM71 but also gives the facts relating to the effect of PCBM71 mixing into the SQ which is very significant because the SQ has donor-acceptor-donor (D-A-D) structure and mixing one more acceptor can introduce more complex recombinations in the blend. These findings have been complimented by the charge transport study in the device using impedance spectroscopy. The various important transport parameters are transit time (tau(t)), diffusion constant (D-n), global mobility (mu) and carrier lifetime (tau(r)). The values of these parameters are 26.38 mu s, 4.64x10(-6) cm(2)s(-1), 6.12x10(-6) cm(2)V(-1)s(-1) and 399 mu s, respectively. To the best of our knowledge such study related to SQ is not present in the literature comprehensively

Revealing charge carrier dynamics in squaraine:[6, 6]-phenyl-C 71-butyric acid methyl ester based organic solar cells

Ultrafast charge carrier dynamics as well as the generation of polaron pair in squaraine (SQ) and squaraine:[6,6]-phenyl-C 71-butyric acid methyl ester (SQ:PCBM71) have been studied using ultrafast transient absorption spectroscopy (UTAS). The current study reveals that the pure SQ exhibits the creation of singlet and triplet states; however, incorporation of PCBM71 in SQ results in the formation of polaron pairs with ∼550ps lifetime, which in turn leads to the creation of free electrons in the device. We show that the considerable increment in monomolecular and bimolecular recombination in SQ:PCBM71 compared to pure SQ which describes the interfacial compatibility of SQ and PCBMC71 molecules. The present work not only provides the information about the carrier generation in SQ and SQ:PCBM71 but also gives the facts relating to the effect of PCBM71 mixing into the SQ which is very significant because the SQ has donor-acceptor-donor (D-A-D) structure and mixing one more acceptor can introduce more complex recombinations in the blend. These findings have been complimented by the charge transport study in the device using impedance spectroscopy. The various important transport parameters are transit time (τt), diffusion constant (Dn), global mobility (μ) and carrier lifetime (τr). The values of these parameters are 26.38 μs, 4.64x10-6 cm2s-1, 6.12x10-6 cm2V-1s-1 and 399 μs, respectively. To the best of our knowledge such study related to SQ is not present in the literature comprehensively