Search Results (3)

The evaluation of teaching effectiveness in blended learning methodologies is usually carried out using Likert-type questionnaires; however, instruments with Behavioral Anchored Rating Scales (BARS) are sometimes employed for this purpose. This paper examines the validity and reliability of an instrument with BARS designed to assess teaching effectiveness in blended learning environments, within the university setting. The research involves a sample of 1436 students from a medium size university in Spain. Using this sample (n = 1436), the authors carry out a psychometric study that consists of four phases: (1) comprehension validity analysis, (2) construct validity analysis, (3) confirmation of construct validity, and (4) analysis of the instrument reliability. The findings provide satisfactory values for all the parameters analyzed (for instance: Variance explained = 77.61%; RMSEA = 0.042; or Cronbach’s alpha = 0.956), indicating that the BARS instrument examined is perfectly valid and reliable for the appraisal of teaching effectiveness in blended learning methodologies. The authors conclude that this paper fills an important gap in the literature by presenting an instrument that, thanks to the use of behavioral scales, facilitates this task in the university context. Full article

Safety culture is the result of values, attitudes, and perceptions of the members of an organization that prioritize safety over competing goals. Previous research has shown the impact that organizational aspects can have in safety performance. Under the prism of the theoretical approaches from the high reliability organizations theory (HROT), resilience engineering (RE), and conflicting objectives perspective, this study was aimed at describing the overall main safety culture traits of the Spanish nuclear power plants, as well as identifying particularities associated with subcultures. For this purpose, a statistical analysis of safety culture surveys and behavioral anchored rating scales (BARS), handed over to all the operating Spanish nuclear power plants, was carried out. Results reveal that safety is a recognized value that prevails over production, there is a high degree of standardization, power plants are better prepared to organize plans and strategies than to adapt and cope with the needs of a crisis, and there is a critical and fragmented perception about the processes of resources allocation. Findings also identify that sociodemographic aspects, such as work location and contractual relationship, seem to be shaping differentiated visions. Several safety implications linked to the results are discussed. Full article

The location of this research is the university, through which we are progressively channeled into a seemingly insoluble Gordian knot. What is our participation in the university and what cultural and human commitments inform this participation? More trivially, what rights and duties does the individual acquire or lose within his or her academic identities? Our main target was finding an ideal organizational practice to examine, such as an emergency event. What strategy can the university adopt? Can it realign its distortions and retain its resources? How and in what ways? What information is needed for this purpose? Which actors are relevant in this process? A systemic survey model is, therefore, presented to analyze data obtained from a sample of 200 respondents from various academic groups, including students, professors, administrative staff, and other stakeholders. Quotas were used for the primary challenge posed by the pictures representing dimensions according to a systemic schema of organizational effectiveness (OE). Respondents were then asked to judge the dimensions and pictures against their personal capacity for intellectual identity, functionalism, and materialism. During the test, the participants were expected to develop their capacity to approach phenomenal consciousness and the search for its neural correlates, thereby becoming familiar with the high-order demands and challenges posed by the current information available to them. A nine-item interval behaviorally anchored rating scale (BARS) was used to develop a systemic matrix that could show the participants’ collective OE when an emergency event occurs at the university. This study aims to stimulate a broader investigation into the preparation of programs and plans that should be a priority today in the context of sustainability in educational institutions, thereby setting useful thresholds on decision-making paths. To develop the collective model, a matrix generated by each respondents’ dimensional modal values (DMVs) in the test and the overall samples’ modal values (OMMVs) were used. Borrowing from Luce’s theory of probability, we analyzed the similarity of the OE university matrix from the results in descending order, restricting our attention to modal values which were chosen for the test and demonstrate how the learning model was formulated to assume that each group with evolved behavior could respond adaptively to a conditional function thanks to its permanence in a university environment. Full article