Browsing by Subject "Learning"

Now showing 1 - 7 of 7
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    Dictators Walking the Mogadishu Line: How Men Become Monsters and Monsters Become Men
    (2017-06-06) Larcom, Shaun; Sarr, Mare; Willems, Tim
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    The "educationally disadvantaged" student : factors impacting upon conceptions of learning and perceptions of learning contexts
    (1992) Cliff, Alan Frank; Meyer, JHF
    Utilising an individual-difference model of student learning, this study set out to explore the manifestations of qualitative differences in study behaviour at the individual level, amongst a group of educationally disadvantaged students enrolled in the Academic Support Programme in Engineering at Cape Town (ASPECT). The first aim of the study was to describe and conceptually categorise, within the concept of the study orchestration, the manifestation of these individual differences in study engagement, by means of a retrospective analysis of students' school-based study of Science. This process was undertaken when the students first arrived at the university. The quantitative process of classification, done independently of the author, was augmented by each student being individually interviewed by the author about his (retrospective) study behaviour. The second aim was to investigate the study orchestrations of these students in the transition between school and university. Stability over time, in the absence of explicit intervention, of (in particular) students whose study orchestrations had been classified as "at risk" on entry to the university, confirmed the findings from previous studies (some of which had been conducted with groups of educationally disadvantaged students). In previous studies, it had been shown that students in this conceptual category were likely to fail or achieve poorly in conventional university examinations. An ongoing programme of intervention was then designed with the specific aim of enabling "at risk" students to 'reorchestrate' aspects of their study behaviour in qualitatively 'deeper' ways. Modelled in part on previous, more narrowly focused, intervention strategies, the intervention in this study set out to improve "at risk" students' qualitative levels of perceptions of their learning contexts, but it also focused more broadly on the whole ASPECT group without losing sight of the manifestations of qualitative differences in learning conceptions, student epistemologies, and so on, amongst this group. This was achieved by engaging all students in ongoing discourse about crucial learning processes, such as the development of metacognitive awareness and the .need to assume personal responsibility for learning. The study confirmed the findings of other studies: that it is possible to alter "at risk" students' contextualised perceptions in qualitatively 'deeper' ways. In addition, the study suggested lines for individual and subgroup intervention that (1) is possible within the context of everyday learning and teaching; (2) can be carried out by the average academic practitioner, and (3) is transferable to other contexts of academic support.
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    HIV status disclosure to perinatally-infected adolescents in Zimbabwe: a qualitative study of adolescent and healthcare worker perspectives
    (Public Library of Science, 2014) Kidia, Khameer K; Mupambireyi, Zivai; Cluver, Lucie; Ndhlovu, Chiratidzo E; Borok, Margaret; Ferrand, Rashida A
    Introduction & Objectives: Due to the scale up of antiretroviral therapy, increasing numbers of HIV-infected children are living into adolescence. As these children grow and surpass the immediate threat of death, the issue of informing them of their HIV status arises. This study aimed to understand how perinatally-infected adolescents learn about their HIV-status as well as to examine their preferences for the disclosure process. METHODS: In-depth interviews were conducted with 31 (14 male, 17 female) perinatally-infected adolescents aged 16-20 at an HIV clinic in Harare, Zimbabwe, and focused on adolescents' experiences of disclosure. In addition, 15 (1 male, 14 female) healthcare workers participated in two focus groups that were centred on healthcare workers' practices surrounding disclosure in the clinic. Purposive sampling was used to recruit participants. A coding frame was developed and major themes were extracted using grounded theory methods. RESULTS: Healthcare workers encouraged caregivers to initiate disclosure in the home environment. However, many adolescents preferred disclosure to take place in the presence of healthcare workers at the clinic because it gave them access to accurate information as well as an environment that made test results seem more credible. Adolescents learned more specific information about living with an HIV-positive status and the meaning of that status from shared experiences among peers at the clinic. CONCLUSIONS: HIV-status disclosure to adolescents is distinct from disclosure to younger children and requires tailored, age-appropriate guidelines. Disclosure to this age group in a healthcare setting may help overcome some of the barriers associated with caregivers disclosing in the home environment and make the HIV status seem more credible to an adolescent. The study also highlights the value of peer support among adolescents, which could help reduce the burden of psychosocial care on caregivers and healthcare workers.
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    The Learning for Living Project 2000-2004: A book-based approach to the learning of language in South African primary schools
    (2008) Schollar, Eric
    The Learning for Living Project was implemented over five years in 957 primary schools in all nine provinces of South Africa. The intervention embodied a bookbased approach to the learning of English as a second language and was based upon a modified book flood model utilizing the supply of materials supported by in-service training as well as extensive classroom monitoring. A total of 13 164 teachers were supplied with a total of 4 002 103 individual books of different types – a mean of 304 per teacher. In addition, each teacher received a mean of 9.6 INSET courses and 6.9 monitoring visits. The project cost R153 million for a total of 875 000 learners yielding a per capita cost of R175 per learner over the whole five year project, including project staff salaries and administration. The project was externally evaluated through the use of a quasi experimental design that longitudinally tracked true cohorts of randomly selected learners in project and control groups drawn from a sample of 90 schools. The resulting data has a precision of just over 1% at a confidence level of 95% - mean scores of the project and control groups were virtually equivalent at baseline (-0.5% difference in relation to the project mean). All of the components of the sample measured significant impacts in the project group over the controls in literacy – Cohort One +6.9%, Cohort Two +3.4%, Grade Five +7.6% and Grade Seven +7.7%. There is a 100% certainty that these impacts were achieved as a result of the book- based approach to the learning of English as a second language applied by the Learning for Living Project. That similar impacts in mathematics were not obtained suggests that poor inputs and outcomes in mathematics exist independently of the language in which it is learned.
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    The LIFE TRIAD of emergency general surgery
    (2022-07-25) Coccolini, Federico; Sartelli, Massimo; Kluger, Yoram; Osipov, Aleksei; Cui, Yunfeng; Beka, Solomon G; Kirkpatrick, Andrew; Sall, Ibrahima; Moore, Ernest E; Biffl, Walter L; Litvin, Andrey; Pisano, Michele; Magnone, Stefano; Picetti, Edoardo; de Angelis, Nicola; Stahel, Philip; Ansaloni, Luca; Tan, Edward; Abu-Zidan, Fikri; Ceresoli, Marco; Hecker, Andreas; Chiara, Osvaldo; Sganga, Gabriele; Khokha, Vladimir; di Saverio, Salomone; Sakakushev, Boris; Campanelli, Giampiero; Fraga, Gustavo; Wani, Imtiaz; Broek, Richard t.; Cicuttin, Enrico; Cremonini, Camilla; Tartaglia, Dario; Soreide, Kjetil; Galante, Joseph; de Moya, Marc; Koike, Kaoru; De Simone, Belinda; Balogh, Zsolt; Amico, Francesco; Shelat, Vishal; Pikoulis, Emmanouil; Di Carlo, Isidoro; Bonavina, Luigi; Leppaniemi, Ari; Marzi, Ingo; Ivatury, Rao; Khan, Jim; Maier, Ronald V.; Hardcastle, Timothy C.; Isik, Arda; Podda, Mauro; Tolonen, Matti; Rasa, Kemal; Navsaria, Pradeep H.; Demetrashvili, Zaza; Tarasconi, Antonio; Carcoforo, Paolo; Sibilla, Maria G.; Baiocchi, Gian L.; Pararas, Nikolaos; Weber, Dieter; Chiarugi, Massimo; Catena, Fausto
    Emergency General Surgery (EGS) was identified as multidisciplinary surgery performed for traumatic and non-traumatic acute conditions during the same admission in the hospital by general emergency surgeons and other specialists. It is the most diffused surgical discipline in the world. To live and grow strong EGS necessitates three fundamental parts: emergency and elective continuous surgical practice, evidence generation through clinical registries and data accrual, and indications and guidelines production: the LIFE TRIAD.
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    Motor learning: an analysis of 100 trials of a ski slalom game in children with and without developmental coordination disorder
    (Public Library of Science, 2015) Smits-Engelsman, Bouwien C M; Jelsma, Lemke Dorothee; Ferguson, Gillian D; Geuze, Reint H
    Objective Although Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) is often characterized as a skill acquisition deficit disorder, few studies have addressed the process of motor learning. This study examined learning of a novel motor task; the Wii Fit ski slalom game. The main objectives were to determine: 1) whether learning occurs over 100 trial runs of the game, 2) if the learning curve is different between children with and without DCD, 3) if learning is different in an easier or harder version of the task, 4) if learning transfers to other balance tasks. Method 17 children with DCD (6-10 years) and a matched control group of 17 typically developing (TD) children engaged in 20 minutes of gaming, twice a week for five weeks. Each training session comprised of alternating trial runs, with five runs at an easy level and five runs at a difficult level. Wii scores, which combine speed and accuracy per run, were recorded. Standardized balance tasks were used to measure transfer. RESULTS: Significant differences in initial performance were found between groups on the Wii score and balance tasks. Both groups improved their Wii score over the five weeks. Improvement in the easy and in the hard task did not differ between groups. Retention in the time between training sessions was not different between TD and DCD groups either. The DCD group improved significantly on all balance tasks. CONCLUSIONS: The findings in this study give a fairly coherent picture of the learning process over a medium time scale (5 weeks) in children novice to active computer games; they learn, retain and there is evidence of transfer to other balance tasks. The rate of motor learning is similar for those with and without DCD. Our results raise a number of questions about motor learning that need to be addressed in future research.
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    Symbolic access: medical students’ awareness of institutional culture and its influence on learning, a phenomenographic study
    (2024-01-04) Lulua, Dina-Ruth; Moch, Shirra
    Abstract Background The discussion of access in medical education has its focus largely on physical and epistemological access, leaving a qualitative gap regarding sociocultural factors which enable access in this context. This study introduces and defines symbolic access, a concept with a specific lens on sociocultural inclusion, and the influence it has on student learning within the South African medical education landscape. Methods A phenomenographic design was used to explore students’ conceptions of symbolic access and its impact on learning. One-on-one exploratory interviews were conducted with fifteen final year medical students at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. Interviews were analysed using Sjöström and Dahlgren‘s seven-step phenomenography model. Results Four categories of description were induced, which described students’ understanding of symbolic access, these were rejection, disregard, invalidation, and actualization. Four dimensions of variation were discovered expressing the diversity of events which informed the collectives’ understanding of the phenomenon. These dimensions were; interactions with educators, peer relationships, educational environment, and race. Categories of description and dimensions of variation formed the Outcome Space, a visual representation of the student experience of symbolic access. The outcome space had a double narrative related to symbolic access; exclusion (major) and actualization (minor). Medical student’s chief experience within the medical community was exclusion, however clinical immersion, meaningful participation, peer-relationships, and clinical skills lessons facilitated community enculturation, and impacted learning. Conclusion Despite deeply exclusionary experiences throughout their programme, medical students articulated a paradox of both awareness and no awareness of symbolic access. The awareness of symbolic access was predominantly influenced by clinical experiences and clinical immersion during the pre-clinical and clinical years of study. Further, descriptions of valuable learning experiences were connected to clinical events and the involvement with patient care. This study suggests that the actualization of symbolic access and description of meaningful learning experiences are linked. Medical educationalists should design undergraduate curricula with early clinical immersion at the fore and explore symbolic concepts pertaining to access, as they are linked to transformative learning experiences for the medical student.