The relationships between personality, approaches to learning, and academic success in first-year psychology distance education students

[Abstract]: The first aim of this study was to examine the relationships between the big five personality traits and approaches to learning in a sample of first-year psychology distance students. Approaches to learning are the intentions a student has when faced with a learning task. A deep approach reflects an intention to understand the material, a strategic approach reflects an intention to achieve the highest grades possible, and a surface approach reflects an intention to cope with the course requirements by memorising facts. Consistent with previous research of on-campus students, the Intellect trait predicted the deep learning approach; the Conscientiousness trait predicted the strategic learning approach; and the Emotional Stability trait negatively predicted the surface learning approach. The second aim of this study was to investigate whether approaches to learning predict academic success, as measured by grade point average. As expected, the surface learning approach negatively predicted achievement. However, contrary to expectations, neither the deep nor the strategic learning approach predicted academic success. This finding may partly be explained by these first-year distance students undergoing a transition to the expectations and requirements of their flexible learning environments. Further research is warranted to establish whether the deep and strategic learning approaches become more likely to predict academic success in the latter years of study, after distance students have adapted to the flexible delivery methods. To this end, a longitudinal study that tracks the academic performance of these students until they complete their degrees or leave the university is recommended

Gender and Justice: The Experience of Female Lawyers in Indiananapolis

Gentleman M.B . is recorded in United States history as far back as 1638, and was a successful landowner, local leader, and attorney to the governor. What is not translated is that this gentleman was, in fact, a woman: Margaret Brent was the first known female attorney, and would be the only one allowed entrance to the Bar for more than 200 years. Even though centuries later, in 1869, Myra Bradwell (Illinois), Mary Magoon (Iowa) and Belle Mansfield (Iowa) gained access to the legal community, women remained an outcast minority until very recently. A mere two percent of the profession was female in 1970, rising to 12% by 1980. The American Bar Association\u27s 2008 statistics place women law students at 47%, while only 18.3% as partners of a firm, and report a grand total of 31.6% of all attorneys. The reluctant acceptance of women into the legal field still bears an effect of female status, progress and success. Prevailing stereotypes about a women\u27s place and responsibility for society have created difficult stigmas and challenges for females entering the legal field

'Violently democratic and anti-Conservative'? : an analysis of Presbyterian 'radicalism' in Ulster, c1800-1852

EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Exploring the effects of clinical simulation on nursing students’ learning and practice

In simulation-based learning, nursing or medical students are exposed to hypothetical scenarios that mimic the realities of clinical practice. This provides them with an opportunity to practise and reflect on clinical skills in a safe environment. This article details a small-scale evaluation that was undertaken to explore two nursing students’ perspectives on clinical simulation. The aim of this evaluation was to identify what these students learned from clinical simulation and the effects it had on their practice. It also aimed to inform the programme’s academic revalidation and therefore improve the university’s offering. Taking part in simulation before undertaking their first clinical placement increased the students’ confidence and it improved their fundamental nursing, communication, psychomotor and reflective skills

δ13C provides a robust indicator of the sources of suspended sediment in a tropical river traversing forested and agricultural land

Degradation of freshwater and marine ecosystems by sediment and associated pollutants is widespread, We set out to determine the sources of suspended sediment, using composite fingerprinting, in the Tully River, which discharges into the Great Barrier Reef lagoon. Samples of suspended sediment combined over a whole wet season were taken from the Tully River and two of its main tributaries, Samples of potential source material were taken from 102 sites covering several land use and geological categories. When all 23 measured properties (mostly total elemental contents) were included in the fingerprint, 50% of the suspended sediment in the Tully River was attributed to sugarcane surface soil, 15% to other land uses, and 35% to channels, which are all in sugarcane growing areas on Quaternary alluvium and colluvium. However, mean relative errors were quite high. When mineral properties were excluded from the fingerprint, land use sources could be discriminated with reduced mean relative errors, δ13C separated forest versus sugarcane, and 613C in combination with C:N ratio separated surface soil versus channels. Fingerprints based on organic properties attributed >60% of suspended sediment to channel erosion. The results show that caution is needed when applying and interpreting the composite fingerprinting approach in some environments

A global, spatially-explicit assessment of irrigated croplands influenced by urban wastewater flows

When urban areas expand without concomitant increases in wastewater treatment capacity, vast quantities of wastewater are released to surface waters with little or no treatment. Downstream of many urban areas are large areas of irrigated croplands reliant on these same surface water sources. Case studies document the widespread use of untreated wastewater in irrigated agriculture, but due to the practical and political challenges of conducting a true census of this practice, its global extent is not well known except where reuse has been planned. This study used GIS-based modeling methods to develop the first spatially explicit estimate of the global extent of irrigated croplands influenced by urban wastewater flows, including indirect wastewater use. These croplands were further classified by their likelihood of using poor quality water based on the spatial proximity of croplands to urban areas, urban wastewater return flow ratios, and proportion of wastewater treated. This study found that 65 percent (35.9 Mha) of downstream irrigated croplands were located in catchments with high levels of dependence on urban wastewater flows. These same catchments were home to 1.37 billion urban residents. Of these croplands, 29.3 Mha were located in countries with low levels of wastewater treatment and home to 885 million urban residents. These figures provide insight into the key role that water reuse plays in meeting the water and food needs of people around the world, and the need to invest in wastewater treatment to protect public health

Making safeguarding personal temperature check

Adult safeguarding has been the recipient of much criticism regarding policy, process and practice, brought to widespread public attention following media exposure and which subsequent initiatives have sought to address. The Care Act 2014 gave a statutory basis to safeguarding reforms and brought together the concepts of personalisation and wellbeing, whereby all safeguarding adults work is to be person-led, outcome-focused, engage with the person and enhance their involvement, choice and control, intending to improving quality of life, wellbeing and safety. This approach and inherent values are operationalised in the initiative Making Safeguarding Personal (MSP). The research reported sought to explore managerial understanding and the current level of implementation of MSP within statutory and private service providers in one area in the north of England. The data collection adopted a constructivist epistemological perspective and undertook semi-structured interviews with middle managers in 17 organisations in one safeguarding board area. These included local authority adult services, police, fire service, housing and private care providers amongst others. The data was subject to framework analysis. A key finding is that policies and procedures may be in place across organisations but the extent to which they are implemented depends on the organisational culture and whether value change as well as policy change has occurred. The report concludes by identifying a typology of organisational implementation which agencies and service providers can use to understand their journey in the implementation of Making Safeguarding Personal in practice

Liberated Africans in the Atlantic World: The Courts of Mixed Commission in Havana and Rio de Janeiro 1819-1871.

This thesis compares two courts of Mixed Commission for the suppression of the slave trade in two notorious slave trading ports: Havana and Rio de Janeiro. Treaties, through which Britain imposed slave trade laws, led to the establishment of bilateral Mixed Commissions courts for the suppression of the slave trade in several Atlantic ports in the early nineteenth century. The Commissions have generally been viewed by scholars as important, but precursory to effective abolition of the slave trade; institutions which did not deter slave traders. Here the impact of these courts is addressed principally through the study of the liberated Africans or “recaptives” who the courts were intended to free. It demonstrates the potential and legacy of the Mixed Commissions in light of British reluctance to sabotage economic dominance, despite its dedication to eradicating the slave trade. Drawing on research in archives in Britain, Brazil and Cuba it highlights the importance of addressing local socio-economic circumstances and British imperial policy and objectives in each place, as well as viewing the courts as part of a wider Atlantic system. In doing so it reveals the challenges that the courts represented to slave traders and slave societies during the zenith of the slave trade to both locations