scholarly journals Open Online Assignment Submission: First Year Students' Behavior and Views

10.28945/3230 ◽  
2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dorothy Langley ◽  
Miky Ronen ◽  
Shlomit Ben Shachar

The Open Assignment Submission (OAS) is an innovative regime whereby students submit homework assignments of an appropriate nature into a designated open forum provided by the Learning Management System (LMS). Our previous research, carried out with a cohort of Education graduates, indicated possible benefits and challenges of OAS as a means of supporting assignment submission through learning from peer examples. The current paper presents a recent explorative case study into the behaviour patterns and views of 55 first year students regarding OAS, during the very early stages of the Academic Literacy course. Drawing on two main data sources (a self-report questionnaire and data of student access and submission retrieved from the course LMS records) we have found characteristic patterns of peer-example viewing, assignment submission schedules and related grades. The OAS regime appears to provide an appreciated learning support and has a potential to promote intentional learning.

10.28945/3092 ◽  
2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dorothy Langley

This paper presents an Academic Literacy course designed for first year students in our department. The course is based on a set of relevant reading materials and covers knowledge levels and classification systems, logical and physical library organization principles, physical and virtual search for publications, bibliographic citations and referencing methods and purposes. The paper describes two, out-of-class, activities related to the academic and public libraries in the information age. The first activity, the “Book Hunt”, organizes the students’ conceptions of the variety of functions being served and the impact of information technology on retrieving academic publications. Students’ response to a reflective assignment dealing with concepts and impressions is described. The second activity “Visiting a public library”, involves interviewing the librarian and writing a report on the structure and functions of the library. The paper discusses features of students’ reports and indicates the contribution of the activities to the students’ academic world view.


2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Beauty B. Ntereke ◽  
Boitumelo T. Ramoroka

The ability to read and interpret textbooks and other assigned material is a critical component of success at university level. Therefore, the aims of this study are twofold: to evaluate the reading levels of first-year students when they first enter the university to determine how adequately prepared they are for university reading. It is also to find out if there will be any significant improvement after going through the academic literacy course offered to first-year students. The participants were 51 first-year undergraduate humanities students enrolled in the Communication and Academic Literacy course at the University of Botswana. The data were collected through a reading test adopted from Zulu which was administered at the beginning of the first semester. The same test was administered at the end of the semester after the students had gone through the academic literacy course to see if there was any difference in performance. The findings of this study indicate that there is a mixed and wide variation of students reading competency levels when students first enter the university and that a significant number of first-year entrants are inadequately prepared for university reading.


2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-150
Author(s):  
E.S. Dmitrieva ◽  
V.Ya. Gelman

Research is devoted to the study of the relationship of emotional intelligence of students with the results of the state exam in the adaptation of the school system for 5 years from the date of introduction. The sample consisted of 156 first-year students. Evaluation of the components of emotional intelligence was measured by self-report (EmIn questionnaire). There was a statistically significant correlation between the severity of different indicators of emotional intelligence of students passing the exam and the results of the three school subjects: Russian language, Mathematics, Social studies. It is shown that since the introduction in 2009 of compulsory exam the level of communication between the indicators of emotional intelligence and the results of the examination has changed. Adaptation processes to the introduction of the state exam lead to changes contingent of successful students: If at the time of the introduction of the exam more successful were students with higher EI, in the process of adaptation more successful became those with lower EI. It was shown that the components of EI, having the most important relationships with the results of the exam, are different for the considered subjects; the dynamics of these relationships has been revealed.


Author(s):  
Agung Wicaksono

<p>Communication strategy is the way to help the speakers when facing difficulties in communication using English as a second language. This case study, at the first year students of English Department, aims to know the most frequent students’ strategies to communicate in speaking activity in speaking class. It is  found that thirteen communication strategies were used by the students in speaking English class, but not all of the communication strategies were used in every conversation, but only certain communication strategy was used. It depends on  the materials difficulties. Furhermore, the most frequent  communication strategies is stalling or time gaining strategy. As they need some time to think and then continue talking after they find the right words they need to communicate. This findings is in line with the propossed theory stated that communication strategy is defined as a systematic technique employed by a speaker to express his or her meaning when facing certain difficulties in communication.</p>


Author(s):  
Heather Coffey ◽  
Susan B. Harden ◽  
Erik Jon Byker ◽  
Amy J. Good ◽  
Larry B. Fisher

Using case study method, this project examines the perceptions and practices related to development of self and cultural awareness among a cohort of 104 (n=104) first-year students, all aspiring to become future teachers. Over the course of one academic semester, first year students who planned to enter the teacher education program participated in readings, activities, assignments, field based observations, and discussions developed to facilitate self and cultural awareness. The findings from analyses of these artifacts indicate that pre-service teachers began to demonstrate deeper awareness of how personal opinions and biases influenced their interactions with others and the types of characteristics related to appreciating diversity (Akiba, 2011) in urban classrooms. This study has implications for engaging first year students in early field-based clinical experiences in order to develop self and cultural awareness in preparation for teaching.


Author(s):  
Melissa L. Johnson ◽  
Laura Pasquini ◽  
Michelle R. Rodems

This case study, an honors first year seminar from the University of Florida, USA, demonstrates the benefits and challenges of these developments in education. The case expands the definition of formal, informal, and online learning communities in the context of a first year seminar.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 265
Author(s):  
Chambers ◽  
Salter ◽  
Muldrow

First-year students who enter college pursuing a STEM degree still face challenges persisting through the STEM pipeline (Chen, 2013; Leu, 2017). In this case study, researchers examine the impact of a utilitarian scientific literacy based academic intervention on retention of first-year students in STEM using a mixed methods approach. A sample (n = 116) of first-year students identified as at-risk of not persisting in STEM were enrolled in a for credit utilitarian scientific literacy course. Participants of the semester long course were then compared with a control group of first-year students identified as at-risk of persisting in STEM. A two-proportion z test was performed to assess the mean differences between students and participants of the course were given a survey to gauge student experiences. Quantitative results (φ 0.34, p < 0.05) indicate that the utilitarian scientific literacy course had a statistically significant impact on retention among first-year students at-risk of persisting in STEM. Moreover, qualitative data obtained from participant responses describe internal and external growth as positive outcomes associated with the intervention.


1976 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 619-624 ◽  
Author(s):  
Géry D'ydewalle

Subjects (100 first-year students of both sexes from the Law School at Leuven, Belgium) selected one of several nonsense words as a “translation” of a real word and were told whether their choice was “right” or “wrong.” Subjects who expected to have the whole series of items a number of times until the correct translation for each word was completely learned (multiple-trial condition) recalled more “right” responses than subjects who expected a single second trial (two-trial condition). A preliminary exposure to a similar but shorter task had a different influence according to the two conditions: there was a decrease in recall of response in the multiple-trial condition but an increase in the two-trial condition. The data suggest that conflicting conclusions about the difference in recall between “right” and “wrong” responses are related to differences in the instructions for intentional learning.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document