Hoe goed is ons geheugen?

Het falen van ons geheugen geniet de laatste tijd meer belangstelling dan de goede kanten ervan. Ten onrechte, want zoals uit onderstaande bijdrage blijkt, kan ons geheugen ook verbluffende prestaties leveren. Daarnaast wordt betoogd dat ook het vergeten van zaken noodzakelijk is om goed te kunnen functioneren

What kind of university does Erasmus want to be in fifteen years’ time?

Dies Lecture 8 November 2011, on the occasion of the 98th Dies natalis of the Erasmus University Rotterdam. I’m sure that none of you will have failed to notice that for a year now Erasmus University has been talking about working closly together with the universities of Delft and Leiden. The talks on cooperation are part of the efforts of the Executive Board and the deans to find an appropriate answer to the quetion of the kind of university Erasmus want to be and can be in fifteen years’ time

Wie bepaalt het universitaire onderzoeksbeleid? Studenten? Uitgevers?

De Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam maakt dit academisch jaar een grote sprong voorwaarts met Open Access: het gratis publiceren van wetenschappelijk werk op het internet. Alle publicaties van EUR- en Erasmus MC-onderzoekers komen vanaf 2011 in de online databank Repub en zijn voor iedereen beschikbaar. Dit kondigde rector magnificus prof.dr. Henk Schmidt aan in zijn toespraak op de Opening van het Academisch Jaar 2010-2011 op maandag 6 september 2010

Studiebeleving van Maastrichtse medische studenten

Maastrichtse medische studenten blijken alleszins tevreden met het onderwijs dat zij genieten. De mogelijkheid veelsoortige praktische ervaring op te doen is aan dat gunstige oordeel niet vreemd. H. G. Schmidt en J. H. C. Moust van de capaciteitsgroep Onderwijsontwikkeling en Onderwijsresearch aan de Rijksuniversiteit Limburg geven een aanvulling op eerder aan een conventionele medische faculteit verricht onderzoek naar de ervaringen van studenten

Facilitating small-group learning: A comparison of student and staff tutors' behavior

This study focused on students' observations of student and staff tutors' behavior during two academic courses, using a thirtynine-item rating scale. The study took place within an integrated problem-based law curriculum. Six major factors in tutors' behavior were identified. Differences between student and staff tutors' performance were investigated. The results showed that student tutors were better at understanding the nature of the problems students face in atte

On the origin of intermediate effects in clinical case recall

In two experiments, the effects of level of medical expertise and study time on free recall of a clinical case were assessed. In Experiment 1, a nonmonotonic relationship between level of expertise and recall was found: Subjects of intermediate levels of expertise remembered more information from the case than both experts and novices. This "intermediate effect" disappeared, however, when study time was restricted. Analysis of post hoc acquired protocols of pathophysiological knowledge active during case processing suggested that this phenomenon could be attributed to the nature of the pathophysiological knowledge mobilized to comprehend the case. In Experiment 2, this assumption was directly tested by priming relevant pathophysiological knowledge for either a short or a longer period, before enabling subjects to study the case briefly. Free-recall data confirmed and extended the results of Experiment 1. Again, an intermediate effect was found; this time, however, it was generated experimentally. The findings were interpreted in terms of qualitative differences in the nature of the knowledge structures underlying performance between novices, advanced students, and medical experts: Experts use knowledge in an encapsulated mode while comprehending a case, whereas students use elaborated knowledge

Interest development: Arousing situational interest affects the growth trajectory of individual interest

Interest has become a central topic in the educational-psychology literature and Hidi and Renninger's (2006) four-phase model of interest development is its most recent manifestation. However, this model presently enjoys only limited empirical support. To contribute to our understanding of how individual interest in a subject develops in learners, two studies were conducted with primary school science students. The first study (N = 187) tested the assumption that repeated arousal of situational interest affects the growth of individual interest. Latent growth curve modeling was applied and the results suggest that t

Epistemic Curiosity and Situational Interest: Distant Cousins or Identical Twins?

To what extent are epistemic curiosity and situational interest different indicators for the same underlying psychological mechanism? To answer this question, we conducted two studies. In Study 1, we administered measures of epistemic curiosity and situational interest to 158 students from an all-boys secondary school. The data were analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis to find out whether a one-factor or a two-factor solution provides the best fit to the data. The findings supported a one-factor solution. A two-factor solution was only satisfactorily supported if one accepted that the two latent constructs were correlated.99. Study 2 was an experiment in which we experimentally manipulated the amount of prior knowledge 148 students had about a particular thermodynamic phenomenon. Epistemic curiosity and situational interest were each measured four times: before a text was studied, before and after a problem was presented, and after a second text was read. The treatment group studied a text explaining the problem after the problem was presented, whereas the control group read it before the problem was presented. The control group, in other words, gained prior knowledge about the problem. In the treatment group, both epistemic curiosity and situational interest significantly increased while being confronted with the problem. This was not the case in the control group. In addition, only in the treatment group scores on both measures significantly decreased after the text explaining the problem was studied. These findings support a knowledge gap account of both situational interest and epistemic curiosity, suggesting an identical underlying psychological mechanism

Self-reported competency ratings of graduates of a problem-based medical curriculum

Purpose. To study the self-reports of professional competencies by graduates of a problem-based medical curriculum. Method. All graduates from a medical school and a faculty of health sciences with a problem-based curriculum were sent a questionnaire asking them to compare their own performances in 19 domains with those of colleagues trained at schools with conventional curricula. Results. Overall, alumni of the medical school rated themselves as better than colleagues who were trained at schools with conventional curricula for cooperation skills, problem-solving skills, skills relevant to running meetings, and the ability to work independently. There was no difference for possession of general academic knowledge and writing reports or articles. The self-reported ratings of better competencies were maintained after correcting the data for self-overestimation. Conclusion. The problem