In the business of learning : approaches to learning of undergraduate students in business

Three approaches to learning are distinguished in the learning literature: a surface, deep and strategic approach to learning. The surface approach to learning is characterized as undirected rote learning, motivated by a fear of failure. The deep approach to learning is characterized as interested learning, seeking personal meaning in what is being learned, and stems from an intrinsic motivation. The strategic approach to learning is described as organized studying guided by an awareness of learning in context, with the intention to do as well as possible in the course. Although the deep approach to learning is preferred and stimulated by many educational researchers, the empirical evidence that this approach leads to the best results in every context in higher education is contradictory. The key research question in this dissertation is; What approach to learning leads to success for undergraduate students in business and how can students be stimulated to use this approach? The dissertation starts with a cross-sectional study among three consecutive cohorts of first-year students. The correlation between approaches to learning and study success of these students is analyzed. Approaches to learning are measured by means of the ASSIST questionnaire developed by Entwistle. Study success is measured in terms of the grades and credits for all first-time exams during one academic year. The analysis of the data reveals a significant positive relationship between the strategic approach to learning and study success and significant negative relations between the surface approach to learning and study success. No correlation is found between the deep approach to learning and study success. This is inconsistent with the broadly accepted idea that the deep approach to learning leads to the best study results. Reasons for this deviation are likely to be the specific disciplinary context of business. Secondly, a longitudinal study on the variability of learning strategies is reported. Many educational experiments are based on the premise that students’ approaches to learning can be changed by changing the learning environment. These experiments frequently yield opposite results, i.e. students increase the surface approach to learning in response to the educational changes. At this point there is no clear evidence for either variability or stability of approaches to learning, or for the mechanisms to change approaches to learning. Three perspectives on this issue are proposed: a personality trait perspective, a development perspective, and a contingency perspective. These perspectives are tested with a longitudinal study on the development of approaches to learning in two different educational environments. Analysis of the data implies that approaches to learning are rather stable over time, in line with what the trait perspective implies. Thirdly, a design-oriented study is conducted to develop a model that can be used in practice by student counsellors. This model serves as a guide for student counsellors to help students who are at risk for drop-out. It provides a framework to help students change their approaches to learning in order to improve their study results. Twelve cases are presented and analyzed with a specific focus on the design of the model. The effects of the counselling on the students’ study performance are analyzed. Finally, recommendations for the application of this model are given. Overall, this dissertation sheds light on the approaches to learning of students in business-related programs at the undergraduate level. One major finding is that the results of previous studies of student learning in other disciplines do not appear to apply to the discipline of business. In addition, the results give reason to claim that improving student learning (in undergraduate programs in business studies) should not be done by way of expensive redesigns of curriculum content and teaching methods. Instead, targeted interventions at the level of underperforming individual students seem to be more effective and efficient

Fossil rhinoceroses from the Limeworks cave, Makapansgat

Main articleThe rhinoceros remains from Makapansgat consist almost exclusively of milk molars. An investigation of the milk teeth of the two living African rhinoceroses Ceratotherium sinum and Diceros bicornis discloses adequate distinguishing characters on a basis of which both species are recognised to occur in the fossil collection. The white rhinoceros is the more abundant and the teeth appear rather larger than in the living races of C. sinum. The significance of the occurrence only of juvenile individuals is discussed.Non

The Racialized Pandemic: Wave One of COVID-19 and the Reproduction of Global North Inequalities

We document the broad patterns of COVID-19 as it affects minority communities. We present a theoretical framework rooted in Global North democracies' racial and ethnic legacies to analyze the health and economic disparities between these communities and the white majority population. Marshalling first-cut empirical evidence from the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Sweden, we find patterns of the pandemic's distribution consistent with how the burden of racial and ethnic legacies endures: people from minority communities have worse health and economic outcomes under normal circumstances, inequalities the COVID-19 crisis has exacerbated. The comparison shows that the impact of racial and ethnic discrimination on pandemic policy outcomes is not unique to the United States. Health inequalities stemming in part from patterns of institutional racism and discrimination perversely help reproduce these societal inequities. We find that governments' initial responses have failed to mitigate the disproportionate impact of this health and economic crisis on minority communities because they did not acknowledge or address the particular challenges that these groups face

Carbon Dioxide emissions from an Acacia plantation on peatland in Sumatra, Indonesia

Peat surface CO2 emission, groundwater table depth and peat temperature were monitored for two years along transects in an Acacia plantation on thick tropical peat (>4 m) in Sumatra, Indonesia. A total of 2300 emission measurements were taken at 144 locations, over a 2 year period. The autotrophic root respiration component of CO2 emission was separated from heterotrophic emission caused by peat oxidation in three ways: (i) by comparing CO2 emissions within and beyond the tree rooting zone, (ii) by comparing CO2 emissions with and without peat trenching (i.e. cutting any roots remaining in the peat beyond the tree rooting zone), and (iii) by comparing CO2 emissions before and after Acacia tree harvesting. On average, the contribution of autotrophic respiration to daytime CO2 emission was 21% along transects in mature tree stands. At locations 0.5 m from trees this was up to 80% of the total emissions, but it was negligible at locations more than 1.3 m away. This means that CO2 emission measurements well away from trees were free of any autotrophic respiration contribution and thus represent only heterotrophic emissions. We found daytime mean annual CO2 emission from peat oxidation alone of 94 t ha−1 y−1 at a mean water table depth of 0.8 m, and a minimum emission value of 80 t ha−1 y−1 after correction for the effect of diurnal temperature fluctuations, which may result in a 14.5% reduction of the daytime emission. There is a positive correlation between mean long-term water table depth and peat oxidation CO2 emission. However, no such relation is found for instantaneous emission/water table depth within transects and it is clear that factors other than water table depth also affect peat oxidation and total CO2 emissions. The increase in the temperature of the surface peat due to plantation establishment may explain over 50% of peat oxidation emissions. Our study sets a standard for greenhouse gas flux studies from tropical peatlands under different forms of agricultural land management. It is the first to purposefully quantify heterotrophic CO2 emissions resulting from tropical peat decomposition by separating these from autotrophic emissions. It also provides the most scientifically- and statistically-rigorous study to date of CO2 emissions resulting from anthropogenic modification of this globally significant carbon rich ecosystem. Our findings indicate that past studies have underestimated emissions from peatland plantations, with important implications for the scale of greenhouse gas emissions arising from land use change, particularly in the light of current, rapid agricultural conversion of peatlands in the Southeast Asian region.Peer reviewe

Sedimentation stacking diagrams of binary mixtures of thick and thin hard rods

We use Onsager theory and the local density approximation to study sedimentation-diffusion equilibrium density profiles of binary mixtures of thick and thin hard rods. We construct stacking diagrams for three diameter ratios, and find that even a simple spindle-shaped phase diagram with only isotropic-nematic demixing can lead to counter-intuitive stacking sequences such as an isotropic phase sandwiched between two nematic phases. For the most complex phase diagram considered here, we find sixteen distinct stacking sequences, including several with five sedimented layers. By adding sedimentation paths to composition-pressure and density-density phase diagrams and calculating density and composition profiles, we show that conclusions about bulk phase diagrams of binary mixtures on the basis of sedimentation-diffusion equilibria should be drawn warily.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figures, extended discussion in section 4, added references, minor changes to figures (results unchanged

Оформление конструкторской документации на печатные платы в условиях автоматизированного проектирования и подготовки производства

Предложен подход к оформлению чертежей печатных плат, позволяющий значительно упростить документацию, а также упорядочить документооборот