Citizen-led Assessments: A Model for Evidence-based Advocacy and Action to Improve Learning

Designed as household-based assessments, citizen-led assessments (CLAs) are implemented by local organizations who assess children in their homes, thus reaching the most marginalized children, families, and communities, often in remote areas. CLAs add an essential piece of information for truly monitoring progress and help realistically represent the learning levels of all children – at national, regional, and global levels. By using simple tools and easy-to-understand reports, CLAs engage parents and community members in discussions about learning and help foster understanding of the importance of ensuring quality education through civil action. In this publication, members from organizations conducting CLAs in India, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh provide an overview of the CLA model and illustrate a range of ways in which the model has been implemented in the four South Asian countries to monitor and improve learning. In all four countries, the initiative is known as the Annual Status of Education Report, or ASER – a word that means ‘impact’ in three of these four countries. By design, ASER assesses foundational reading and numeracy skills.

Doing the Reading: The Decline of Long Long-Form Reading in Higher Education

Long-form reading of literary and non-literary texts is historically an essential component of education. However, in many schooling contexts, the amount of long-form reading is diminishing. Are digital technologies augmenting this trend? And are these technologies affecting assignments and student reading patterns in other ways? This article begins by arguing for the relevance of long-form reading and then reviews prior research on how much assigned reading students in higher education report completing. With these findings as background, university faculty in the United States and Norway were surveyed to gauge contemporary reading assignments and student reading practices in humanities and social sciences disciplines, which traditionally are reading intensive. Several of the questions focused on the potential impact of technology on reading assignments, including their length and complexity. This exploratory research suggests that digital technologies are contributing to reduced long-form reading in higher education.

Exploring Dog-Assisted Interventions in Higher Education: Students’ Attitudes and Perceived Effects on Well-Being

Both, in the transition to university and during it, students experience a multitude of different changes. Thus, it is no surprise that many students in higher education report suffering from mental health problems. To address their concerns, animal-assisted interventions (AAIs) have gained more and more attention over the past few years. Nonetheless, AAIs have neither yet been used nor researched at German universities. Two studies were carried out to address this issue. In Study I, 709 university students answered a questionnaire evaluating their attitude towards dogs, AAIs and interest in its use at their home university. In Study II, 27 students participated in a dog-assisted intervention (DAI) in which they were allowed to interact with a qualified dog for 15 min. To gain information about their well-being, blood pressure was measured and the Basler Befindlichkeitsskala had to be answered before and after the intervention. Results showed a positive attitude among German students toward dogs, AAIs, and the use of DAIs at their home university. Although an effect on physical well-being could not be found, results showed that a 15-min DAI can improve students’ psychological well-being. Thus, higher education administrators should consider using DAIs as a way to improve student well-being.

Advances and perspectives of competence research in higher education – Report on the German KoKoHs program

Higher education in Germany is characterized by specific historicalcultural traditions stemming from von Humboldt’s humanistic understanding of education. In this context, higher education focuses on a variety of multi-perspective goals. Accordingly, higher education focuses on both the acquisition of knowledge and skills in specific domains (e.g., medicine, economics) and on the development and promotion of generic (interdisciplinary) skills (e.g., problem solving, critical thinking), whereby the latter aspect is becoming increasingly more important in the 21st century. This paper analyses ten years of competence research in higher education in germany, and considers advances and perspectives.

Exploring the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on medical learner wellness: a needs assessment for the development of learner wellness interventions

Background: On March 11, 2020 the World Health Organization declared the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 disease (COVID-19) a global pandemic. We sought to understand impact of COVID-19 on learner wellness at a large tertiary care academic institution to inform the future development of learner wellness interventions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: A cross-sectional, internet-based survey collected quantitative and qualitative data from learners April-June 2020. Descriptive statistics and univariate analyses were reported for quantitative data. Open-ended, qualitative responses were analyzed deductively using thematic analysis. Results: Twenty percent of enrolled learners in that faculty of medicine (540/2741) participated including undergraduate [Bachelor’s] students (25.7%), graduate [science] students (27.5%), undergraduate medical students (22.8%), and postgraduate resident physicians (23.5%). We found that learner wellness across all stages of training was negatively impacted and the ways in which learners were impacted varied as a result of their program's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Conclusions: Learners in health sciences and medical education report worsening well-being because of the programs and the systems in which they function with the added burden of the COVID-19 pandemic. Future interventions would benefit from a holistic framework of learner wellness while engaging in systems thinking to understand how individuals, programs and respective systems intersect. The importance of acknowledging equity, diversity and inclusion, fostering psychological safety and engaging learners as active participants in their journey during a pandemic and beyond are key elements in developing wellness interventions.

Barriers to a STEM Career

Inequality of gender representation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) careers continues, despite the narrowing of the gender achievement gap. This chapter showcases original qualitative research that provides clearer insights into origins and effects of math anxiety as the reason females are less likely to choose (STEM) majors and related careers. The role of instruction methodology of the academic organization in perpetuating marginalization practices limits women's STEM achievement. The stage environment fit (SEF) theoretical model probes the relationship of the policies and procedures of the academic organization to the likelihood of female adult-student success in higher education. The American Statistical Association's (ASA) funding of the Guidelines for Assessment and Instruction in Statistics Education Report (GAISE) mandates reforms for mathematics instruction among the information about new research opportunities and the current state of STEM education in the United States.