Search Results (147)

Assessing e-learning students’ satisfaction with lecturers’ interactions in asynchronous forums is essential for enhancing teaching and learning processes. The discussion forum allows students to share comments and ideas with peers or lecturers, stimulating diverse perspectives and improving learning efficacy. However, lecturers’ responses are often similar or redundant to previous students’ comments, limiting feedback depth and potentially reducing students’ perceived value of the interaction. Machine learning classifiers have been widely used to assess satisfaction based on sentiment or semantic similarity. However, integrating sentiment and semantic similarity between students’ comments or opinions and lecturers’ responses in asynchronous online discussion forums has received limited attention and may be improved. Through this research, we propose a novel model called E-learning Satisfaction Assessment using Textual Neural Network (E-SATNet). The E-SATNet model has two main sub-networks. The first sub-network employs a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) to extract sentiment-related features from students’ reactions to lecturers’ responses. The second sub-network utilizes a Bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory (BiLSTM) to extract semantic features from lecturers’ responses and compute their similarity with the overall discussion content. Evaluation results show that E-SATNet effectively assesses satisfaction, achieving an average F1-score of 88.12. Full article

We propose the extension for Artificial Intelligence (AI)-supported learning recommendations within higher education, focusing on enhancing the widely-used Moodle Learning Management System (LMS) and extending it to the Learning eXperience Platform (LXP). The proposed LXP is an enhancement of Moodle, with an emphasis on learning support and learner motivation, incorporating various recommendation types such as content-based, collaborative, and session-based recommendations to provide the next learning resources given by lecturers and retrieved from the content curation of Open Educational Resources (OER) for the learners. In addition, we integrated a chatbot using Large Language Models (LLMs) and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) with AI-based recommendations to provide an effective learning experience. Full article

Introduction: This study investigated the effectiveness of e-learning compared to traditional teaching methods in ultrasound education, centring on a focus cardiac ultrasound (FoCUS) course for third-year undergraduate medical students. With the rise of digital teaching methods, it is essential to evaluate their impact on the development of theoretical and practical skills in ultrasound training. Methods: A prospective, randomised, controlled trial was conducted involving two groups of students participating in a one-day FoCUS course delivered in a flipped classroom format. The study group used e-learning resources, while the control group used hard-copy lecture notes. Assessments were conducted at three stages: before the course, during the preparation phase, and after the course. Evaluations included self-assessment surveys, theory tests, and practical exams using direct observation of procedural skills (DOPS) tests. The study group had 15% less practice time compared to the control group. Results: A total of 109 complete datasets (study group, n = 52; control group, n = 57) were analysed. Both groups showed an equivalent initial level of and a continuous and significant (p < 0.01) increase in subjective and objective skills over the evaluated time frame. The study group achieved significantly (p = 0.03) higher results in DOPS (T2) than the control group. No significant differences were found in the total scores of the theory tests (T2 + T3) or DOPS (T3). Both groups rated their teaching materials, motivation, and the course concept in similarly high scale ranges. Conclusions: The findings suggest that e-learning is as effective as traditional methods in developing ultrasound skills and may serve as a viable alternative, even with reduced face-to-face interaction. These results indicate that accreditation processes could be applied similarly to those for traditional formats without requiring in-person training as a prerequisite for quality Full article

Background: Postmenopausal women face a higher risk of obesity and related chronic diseases. While lifestyle interventions improve cardiometabolic health and physical function, their effects on cognitive function remain understudied, especially in diverse populations. This study examined the impact of a lifestyle intervention combining caloric restriction and exercise on cognitive function in a diverse sample of postmenopausal women with overweight or obesity and functional limitations. Methods: This study represents a secondary analysis of a previously conducted pilot trial, in which 34 participants were randomly assigned to a 24-week intervention: (i) caloric restriction plus exercise (CR + E; n = 17) or (ii) educational control (EC; n = 17). In the CR + E group, participants engaged in group-based weight management focused on caloric restriction and three weekly exercise sessions, including walking and lower-body resistance training. The EC group attended monthly health education lectures. Changes in cognitive scores were assessed using the Digit Symbol Substitution Test (DSST) and the Controlled Oral Word Association (COWA) test. Additionally, we explored the correlation between changes in cognitive scores and physical function in the CR + E group. Results: In the CR + E group, DSST scores significantly improved compared to the EC group (p < 0.05). There were no significant changes in COWA scores for either group compared to their baseline value or between groups. Furthermore, changes in DSST or COWA were not significantly correlated with changes in walking speed or physical function. Conclusions: The preliminary results of this study suggest that CR + E may improve complex attention in functionally limited postmenopausal women with overweight or obesity but does not appear to significantly affect verbal fluency. Full article

The turn away from phenomenology in 20th century French philosophy was in large part due to an increased emphasis on Ferdinand de Saussure’s notion of “linguistic structure”, i.e., that language is the internal system of differences between signs. Thinkers such as Paul Ricoeur and Jean-François Lyotard famously offered a “semiological challenge” to phenomenology. The idea was that phenomenology, especially Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology, reduces to the sensible world and cannot think linguistic structure. Thus, the argument goes that phenomenology leaves out a basic element of human life: not only can it not think linguistic structure, but it also cannot think about elements, e.g., writing and text, which are its result. This paper takes up this challenge, especially in reference to Merleau-Ponty’s terminology in Phenomenology of Perception of “speaking speech” (parole parlante) and “spoken speech” (parole parlée). I point out that, in retrospect of his later work, Merleau-Ponty very clearly did want to take linguistic structure seriously. This, however, means that we need to reconsider some of the basic themes in his work. Taking inspiration from the recently published “problem of speech” lectures, I reconstruct Merleau-Ponty’s idea that speech is a concrete limit situation from which we get both the idea of a language structure in which there are differences and of an ontological difference between being and beings. This is an internal criticism of both linguistic structure and formal ontology. I begin the paper by noting that, in Merleau-Ponty’s descriptions of the tacit and spoken cogito, also in Phenomenology of Perception, Merleau-Ponty criticizes the notion of a subject to which language refers and highlights the notion of a subject that defies representational and denotational structure. I do not, however, go along with Merleau-Ponty’s own criticism of the tacit ego, which he ultimately declared too subjectivistic. Ultimately, I hope to stress the importance of linguistic structure and writing in Merleau-Ponty’s ontology. This is an ontology of that is fragile and requires symbolization. This paper emphasizes under-developed themes in Merleau-Ponty’s work such as bodily event, difference, symbolization, and the writing of philosophy. Full article

Philosophers and literary scholars have notoriously struggled with the periodization of Hölderlin’s work, showing particular reluctance to situate it within Early Romanticism. But there can be no doubt that Hölderlin’s philosophical work resides within the context of an anti-foundationalist criticism, which students of Karl Leonhard Reinhold leveled at his programmatic deduction from a “highest principle” (oberster Grundsatz) in the early 1790s and intensified following Fichte’s lectures (1794/95) on the Science of Knowledge (Wissenschaftslehre). Novalis belonged directly to the circle of Reinhold students, while Hölderlin gained access to it through Friedrich Immanuel Niethammer, his friend from student days in Tübingen and “mentor” in Jena. Niethammer encouraged both Hölderlin and Novalis to contribute to his Philosophisches Journal, conceived as a forum for discussing the pros and cons of foundational philosophy (Grundsatzphilosophie). Novalis’ Fichte-Studies and Hölderlin’s philosophical fragments from 1795/96 can be read as drafts for such an essay. Both men developed similar critiques of Reinhold’s reformulated, subject-centered “highest principle”, the “principle of consciousness” (Satz des Bewusstseins). They argued that according to Reinhold, self-consciousness is a representation, i.e., a binary relationship that provides no explanation for the certainty of unity associated with self-consciousness. Both postulate a transcendent “ground of unity”, which would address this issue while remaining inaccessible to consciousness. My article demonstrates that both men failed to disentangle themselves from the snares of Reinhold’s model of representation, and both transferred the solution for the problem of self-consciousness onto the extra-philosophical medium of art. Full article

The need to review maritime education has been highlighted in the relevant literature. Maritime curricula should incorporate recent technological advances, as well as address the needs of the maritime sector. In this paper, the Fuzzy Delphi Method (FDM) and the Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (FAHP) are utilized in order to propose a fuzzy multicriteria decision-making (MCDM) methodology that can be used to assess the importance of new technologies in maritime education and design a fuzzy evaluation model that can assist in maritime education policy-making. This study integrates the perspectives of the main maritime education stakeholders, namely, lecturers and maritime sector management. We selected data from a group of 19 experienced maritime professors and maritime business managers. The results indicate that new technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR), the Internet of Things (IoT), digital twins (DTs), and cybersecurity, as well as eLearning platforms, constitute a set of requirements that maritime education policies should meet by designing their curricula appropriately. This study suggests that fuzzy logic MCDM methods can be used as a human-centered AI approach for developing explainable education policy-making models that integrate stakeholder requirements and capture the subjectivity that is often inherited in their perspectives. Full article

The operation of Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) systems in densely occupied spaces results in considerable energy consumption. In the post-pandemic context, stricter indoor air quality standards and higher ventilation rates further increase energy demand. In this paper, the energy retrofit of a partial recirculation all-air HVAC system serving a university lecture room located in Southern Italy is analyzed. Multi-Objective Optimization (MOO) and Multi-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) approaches are used to find optimal design alternatives and rank these considering two different decision-makers, i.e., public and private stakeholders. Among the Pareto solutions obtained from optimization, the optimal alternative is identified, encompassing three Key Performance Indicators and using a new robust MCDM approach based on four methods, i.e., TOPSIS, VIKOR, WASPAS, and MULTIMOORA. The results show that, in the post-pandemic era, baseline retrofit scenarios for infection reduction that do not involve the introduction of demand control ventilation strategies cause energy consumption to increase from negligible values up to 59%. On the contrary, baseline retrofit scenarios involving demand control ventilation strategies cause energy consumption to decrease between 5% and 38%. The findings offer valuable guidance for HVAC system retrofits in higher education and similar buildings, emphasizing the potential to balance occupant health, energy efficiency, and cost reduction. The results also highlight significant CO₂ reductions and minimal impacts on thermal comfort, showcasing the potential for substantial energy savings through targeted retrofits. Full article

Learning mathematical concepts is challenging for several students. Paying attention to class lectures and following instructions for different steps to solve a problem are the keys to success in learning mathematical concepts. However, deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) students have challenges in focusing on their teacher’s mouths to lipread or depend on an interpreter’s sign language. Visualization is important in learning as it enhances attention and keeps students focused on a subject. Interactive learning or a hands-on approach can help learners engage in a topic and provide an opportunity to better understand a concept. Combining these two techniques (i.e., visualization and interactive learning), we present an interactive number line (INL) tool to help DHH students understand mathematical concepts such as mean, median, mode, and range. This tool has proven to be useful for visual learning and/or for new learners as it helps provide an activity-based learning environment and feedback. Full article

Like many other sectors, women in higher education have had negative experiences with sexual harassment. This study examines the coping mechanisms used by female lecturer/researchers and their impact on burnout. Based on Occupational Stress Theory, this research specifically analyzes the mediating role of three coping strategies, i.e., problem-focused coping, emotion-focused coping, and avoidant coping. A quantitative survey was conducted among 800 Tunisian women teacher-researchers, with 613 complete responses that are valid for analysis. The results revealed that under the influence of sexual harassment, women in Tunisian higher education institutions suffer increased burnout. Structural equation analysis shows that emotion-focused coping has a partial mediation effect, while avoidant coping fully mediates the link between harassment and burnout. This research adds to the literature on sexual harassment and suggests implications for the prevention and support of victims in higher education institutions. Full article

There is research on professional helper education and jobs working in a society with children and youth or supporting vulnerable people, but for academics, working in higher education, and preparing students for these work fields, it is not very common. This research focuses on academics from five European countries who prepare teachers, medical, healthcare, and clergy professionals. The aim is to design a map of pressures and challenges in their work. We hypothesized that academics in professional helper higher education (PHHE) perceive work-related challenges differently. Using explanatory research methodology, we considered higher education responsibilities: the working time and demands of academics. A total of 315 responses were used in our quantitative analyses from Romania, Slovakia, Hungary, Serbia, and Ukraine. The research questions were as follows: Are there differences between academics’ responsibilities and different PHHE scientific fields or work profiles? How do academics cope with work tasks and work time? How is a long hour-working academic’s profile? Statistical analyses using SPSS included cross-tabulation analysis, ANOVA and correlation tests, and factor analysis. We delimited two scientific fields and four academic working profiles: 1. academics in teacher education; 2. academics in medical/healthcare education; 3. leaders; 4. organizers; 5. classic lecturers; and 6. researchers. We designed five work demand patterns: controls and supports, global pressures, performance pressures, multi-role challenges, and lecturer roles. Drawing the map of pressures, we concluded that there are significant differences between those in teacher education in perceiving global (research, grant, and publish) responsibilities and performance pressures. At the same time, classic lecturers have significantly higher scores on perceiving performance challenges, and we deduced a positive and significant relation between multi-role challenges and overworking time. The design of the long hour-working profile of academics in PHHE is significantly associated with the medical and health scientific field. Men and academics from E.U. countries have significantly higher working time scores than females and workers outside E.U. Leaders have the highest working mean-time score comparing all the working fields and profiles. Our results for higher education teachers, researchers, policymakers, and institutional leaders can be useful in identifying work-related difficulties and maintaining a balanced distribution of work in the academic fields. Full article

Recent research underscores the significance of data-led and collaborative reflection in enhancing teaching practices and professional development of teachers. While video-based reflections have been extensively studied, the potential of corpus-based methods remains underexplored. We address this gap in two ways. Firstly, we describe a research and development project in which we employed a corpus linguistic tool to analyse and reflect on our own lectures, with the ulterior aim of promoting a corpus-based reflective practice (CBRP) model that would help other teachers do the same. Secondly, we introduce collaborative micro auto-ethnography (CMAE) to illustrate how our model can facilitate the noticing of different aspects of teacher talk and lead to, what we call, snowball reflections (i.e., a sequence of reflective talk that extends a topic and spreads from one participant to the next). Our approach shows that corpus analysis, coupled with collaborative reflections, has the potential to not only enhance language use but also stimulate broader and deeper pedagogical discussions on and insights into teaching styles and student engagement, going beyond analyses of single words and lexico-grammatical patterns in teacher talk. We argue that there should be institutional support for developing new corpus-based professional development initiatives and that researchers can benefit from using ethnographic data together with detailed analyses of interactions. Full article

In this research article, budding journalists’ views and attitudes toward a prototype radio lesson that was designed and implemented utilizing advanced technologies are explored. These budding journalists hail from Greece, were studying in higher education or adult education at the time of the survey, and belong to one of the three youngest generational cohorts within adults (i.e., 18 years old and older); Generation X where their members are now known as Xers, Generation Y where their members are already known as Millennials, and Generation Z where their members are also known as Zoomers—XYZ Generations. The survey’s research data were collected after six interactive teachings from and through advanced technologies, via a specially designed written questionnaire, as case study experiments that applied qualitative action research with quasi-experiments. Analysis, descriptive, and inductive statistics were then applied to them from and through Internet applications and services. This is essentially empirical qualitative research that incorporates the approach of the quantitative analysis process. The resulting survey findings and results mainly contribute to the quality of higher education and adult education, especially in the field of media studies. Likewise, they align with or confirm previous contemporary empirical studies and research papers on the genealogical characteristics, habits, and ethos of the XYZ Generations, and particularly regarding the similarities among Xers and Zoomers, as well as that Generation Z can also be characterized as a “Sound Generation”. An important conclusion of this research article is that the success of a lesson or even a lecture seems to depend (a) on the good design and/or development of the lesson plan itself, as well as (b) on the communication classroom where the educational praxis takes place. Finally, these survey findings and results are also considered encouraging and could be utilized (a) for any audiovisual-supported teaching–learning procedure for adult learners; (b) across various educational levels and disciplines; or even (c) for members other generational cohorts. Full article

According to European organizations, intercultural competence is considered a prerequisite for achieving social cohesion. Even though its development calls for a lifelong learning approach, the formal education system has a primary task in its development through all school subjects, i.e., the entire school curriculum. In the last twenty years, international and European organizations have emphasized the importance of religious education in developing students’ intercultural competence. The Republic of Croatia has applied European recommendations in its educational documents and defined intercultural competence as one of the fundamental competencies in the national educational curriculum. The question arises of how religious education in the Republic of Croatia helps students achieve and develop intercultural competence concerning knowledge of other religions and worldviews. This paper is focused on Catholic Religious Education in primary and secondary education. Data are collected using semi-structured interviews among nine Catholic RE teachers in Zagreb County, Republic of Croatia. Qualitative research is based on findings of a quantitative survey conducted among Catholic religious education teachers in 2022. The research questions are: (1) Why are guest lectures and visits to religious communities less represented forms of learning in confessional Religious Education? (2) Which methods are used to develop specific dimensions of intercultural competence (conflict resolution, analytical and critical thinking, attitudes)? (3) Does interreligious learning lead to changes in students’ behaviour, and what are the obstacles to interreligious learning? This paper aims to examine the methodical approaches of RE teachers in the development of intercultural competence, as well as the obstacles they encounter in the process of imparting knowledge about other religions and worldviews within Catholic religious education. Results have shown that the teaching process remains at an informational level; the development of attitudes, critical thinking skills, and conflict-resolution skills is lacking. The absence of experiential learning can largely be attributed to external factors, such as administrative obstacles and teacher’s/parents’ attitudes. Full article

Background/Objectives: Although delirium is common during critical illness, standard-of-care detection and prevention practices in real-world intensive care unit (ICU) settings remain inconsistent, often due to a lack of provider education. Despite availability for over 20 years of validated delirium screening tools such as the Confusion Assessment Method in the ICU (CAM-ICU), feasible and rigorous educational efforts continue to be needed to address persistent delirium standard-of-care practice gaps. Methods: Spanning an 8-month quality improvement project period, our single-ICU interdisciplinary effort involved delivery of CAM-ICU pocket cards to bedside nurses, and lectures by experienced champions that included a live delirium detection demonstration using the CAM-ICU, and a comprehensive discussion of evidence-based delirium prevention strategies (e.g., benzodiazepine avoidance). Subsequent engagement by health system leadership motivated the development of an electronic health record dataset to evaluate unit-level outcomes, including CAM-ICU documentation and benzodiazepine administration. Results: Using a dataset that spanned 9 pre- and 37 post-project months and included 3612 patients, 4470 admissions, and 33,913 patient days, we observed that delirium education was followed by a dramatic rise in CAM-ICU documentation, from <1% for daytime and nighttime shifts to peaks of 73% and 71%, respectively (p < 0.0001 for trend), and a fall in the proportion of mechanically ventilated patients ever receiving benzodiazepine infusions (69% to 41%; p < 0.0001). Conclusions: An interdisciplinary delirium project comprising rigorous lectures on standard-of-care practices can yield significant improvements in documentation and sedative administration. This approach can help ICUs jumpstart efforts to build awareness and address longstanding gaps in standard-of-care delirium practices. Full article