Search Results (297)

Background: As COVID-19 transitions to an endemic phase, long COVID symptoms remain a significant public health issue affecting both physical and mental health. A notable proportion of college students report symptoms such as fatigue, cough, and brain fog persisting for weeks or months post-infection. Objectives: This study explored the prevalence and contributing factors of long COVID symptoms among both infected and uninfected students in medicine-related departments. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted using online self-reported questionnaires completed by 1523 undergraduate and graduate students in medicine-related departments at a medical university. Participants who had tested positive for COVID-19 within the past three months were excluded. The survey assessed long COVID symptoms, with comparisons conducted between infected and uninfected groups. Multivariate logistic regression identified risk factors associated with long COVID symptoms. Results: Of the 1118 participants, 47.5% of those with a prior COVID-19 diagnosis reported long COVID symptoms within the past month. Significant differences between the infected and uninfected groups were observed in physical, cognitive, and psychological health. Logistic regression identified that prior COVID-19 diagnosis had an association with the presence of long COVID symptoms (odds ratio = 1.48, p = 0.024) after adjusted model analysis. Meanwhile, higher anxiety levels (odds ratio = 1.09, p < 0.001) and a BMI ≥ 24 (odds ratio = 4.50, p < 0.01) were identified as significant risk factors for post-infection syndrome among previously infected students. Sex and exercise habits also influenced symptom prevalence. Conclusions: Since late 2023, with those experiencing cumulative infections surpassing half of Taiwan’s population, long COVID symptoms have persisted as a widespread concern affecting both physical and mental health, continuing into 2025. This study underscores critical risk factors and symptom patterns among students in medicine-related departments, reinforcing the urgency of sustained surveillance and targeted interventions to facilitate comprehensive recovery. Full article

Mental health difficulties in university students are an increasing concern, especially after the COVID-19 global crisis. This study used a cross-sectional design to analyze the effect of psychological factors on students’ psychological well-being. Participants were 190 university students enrolled in undergraduate or graduate programs at a public university. Based on previous research and grounded theoretical models, a conceptual model was proposed to analyze the influence of affect states/experiences (emotion regulation difficulties, anxiety and depression, perceived stress, self-compassion, gratitude, and satisfaction with life) on psychological well-being, including the indirect effect of emotions (negative emotions, positive activation emotions, self-efficacy emotions, prosocial emotions, and serenity emotions), using a path analysis. Multigroup analyses were also performed to test the moderating effect of gender and education level. Findings indicated that self-efficacy emotions had an indirect effect on the relationship between anxiety and depression, self-compassion, and psychological well-being. Both prosocial and self-efficacy emotions indirectly impacted the relationship between gratitude, satisfaction with life, and psychological well-being. Being a female and a bachelor student played a moderating role in the final model. The findings suggest that psychological interventions focused on self-efficacy and prosocial emotions are needed to increase psychological well-being in university students. Full article

This study investigates the complex relationship between levels of religiosity and attitudes toward secularization among individuals receiving higher religious education in Türkiye. Secularization is defined as the diminishing influence of religion in public life and the rise of critical attitudes toward religious norms, a process that accelerated particularly during the modernization period following the establishment of the Republic. The primary aim of the research is to analyze whether there is a significant relationship between secular attitudes and the perceived influence of Islam among theology faculty students. The study employs a quantitative, descriptive survey design and includes a sample of 380 undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral students from the faculties of theology at Kocaeli, Sakarya, Marmara, and Istanbul universities. Data were collected using the “Perceived Influence of Religion Scale” and the “Secular Attitude Scale,” both of which demonstrated acceptable reliability (Cronbach’s Alpha = 0.70). Demographic variables such as age, gender, marital status, parental education level, type of education (formal or distance), and economic status were also incorporated into the analysis. The findings revealed statistically significant differences based on marital status, parental education level, type of education program, and previous educational background. For instance, single students reported perceiving a higher influence of religion compared to their married counterparts, while students with fathers who held university degrees perceived a lower influence of religion. These results offer valuable insights into how modern social transformations influence religious attitudes and practices. Full article

This narrative inquiry explores a vibrant classroom knowledge community in a Chinese normal university. By examining the teacher’s interactions, we analyze the community’s development through three perspectives: (1) the author’s narrative of the course outline, (2) the teacher’s narrative of classroom culture, and (3) students’ narratives of their growth. The author presents a student-centered model and seven steps for enacting the course, outlining the environment for cultivating the knowledge community. The teacher’s narrative reveals clues to his success, emphasizing his use of storytelling to foster the community and share educational ideas. Students’ narratives reflect their growth, validating the classroom as a safe space for development and language learning. The significance of this research is that the classroom knowledge community consisted of the teacher, his undergraduate students, and his post-graduates. The three layers existed because of this unrestrained character, devoid of conflicts of interest, created a safe place for students’ development. This research study adds to the literature on how knowledge communities form in school contexts. It focuses on a particular space and time and involves multiple layers of participants, which is prerequisite to the conceptualization of classroom knowledge community. This research has important implications for college language education. Full article

The growing urgency of the climate crisis has heightened the importance of integrating sustainability into health education. Allied health professionals are well positioned to lead sustainable healthcare efforts, yet evidence suggests a persistent gap between student awareness and formal training. This study explored the perspectives, knowledge, and attitudes of Portuguese allied health students regarding sustainability. An online and anonymous cross-sectional survey was conducted among undergraduate and graduate students across multiple allied health disciplines. The questionnaire assessed general knowledge, perceptions of curricular integration, and attitudes toward sustainable clinical practice. A total of 247 (response rate of 8.23%) students participated, with the majority expressing high concern about climate change and strong support for environmentally responsible healthcare. However, the results revealed inconsistent awareness of healthcare’s environmental footprint and a limited exposure to structured sustainability education. Friedman tests indicated significant variability in students’ knowledge, perceived responsibility, and curricular experiences. Students identified priority themes for curricular inclusion—such as the environmental impact of the health system—and recognized their alignment with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDG 3 (Good Health) and SDG 13 (Climate Action). The findings highlight the need for the systematic, competency-based integration of sustainability into allied health curricula to support a climate-resilient and ecologically responsible future healthcare workforce. Full article

Most current undergraduate students have always lived in a world where climate change has been part of the popular discourse. Surveys show that younger individuals are more worried about climate change than older adults, but there has been relatively little examination of the role that concern is playing in the educational and career plans of undergraduate students. This study presents the results of a survey of undergraduates at a US public university that examines the impact of climate change on what these students choose to study and how they are preparing for post-graduation careers. The results show that the majority of respondents believe climate change is an important social problem, that humans have caused it, and that we have a responsibility to address it. About 15 percent of respondents also report that climate change has impacted their area of study or their post-graduation career plans. Respondents who have taken a class focused on climate change are most likely to report an impact, while respondents who have not discussed climate change in a university class are the least likely to report an impact. If the impact of climate change on educational choices grows as climate change impacts increase, universities should expect to see changing demands in areas of study as well as an increasing need for programming and support to prepare students for climate-oriented careers. Full article

Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) play a pivotal role in supporting and advancing the educational mission of universities globally. They are fundamental to a university’s instructional workforce and their roles are critical to the undergraduate student experience. This study examines the experiences and perceptions of GTAs (n = 74) at an R2 institution in the Midwest, U.S. Survey results reveal that the majority of surveyed GTAs have been at the institution for at least one year, teach in face-to-face formats with classes typically ranging from 12 to 30, and allocate 11–20 h/week to their instructional duties, although 30% of respondents report >20 h/week. Survey respondents reported a need for more teaching-focused onboarding, discipline-specific training, and more opportunities for feedback on their teaching practices, while almost 50% reported never engaging with discipline-based education research (DBER) literature. Although departmental and institutional training programs were acknowledged, so too was the perception of their lack of accessibility or relevance. Potential strategies for supporting GTAs, particularly early in their careers, include shadowing opportunities, sustained formal classroom management, and pedagogical training that includes an introduction to (and discussion of) the DBER literature, and a reduced teaching load in the first semester. Universities should prioritize and design GTA professional development using a cognitive apprenticeship framework. This would invest in the undergraduate student experience and directly support an institution’s educational mission. It is also highly effective in preparing highly skilled graduates to enter an increasingly connected global workforce and could positively contribute to an engaged alumni base. Full article

The linguistic summarization of data is one of the study trends in data mining because it has many useful practical applications. A linguistic summarization of data aims to extract an optimal set of linguistic summaries from numeric data. The blended learning format is now popular in higher education at both undergraduate and graduate levels. A lot of techniques in machine learning, such as classification, regression, clustering, and forecasting, have been applied to evaluate learning activities or predict the learning outcomes of students. However, few studies have been examined to transform the data of blended learning courses into the knowledge represented as linguistic summaries. This paper proposes a method of linguistic summarization of blended learning data collected from a learning management system to extract compact sets of interpretable linguistic summaries for understanding the common rules of blended learning courses by utilizing enlarged hedge algebras. Those extracted linguistic summaries in the form of sentences in natural language are easy to understand for humans. Furthermore, a method of detecting the exceptional cases or outliers of the learning courses based on linguistic summaries expressing common rules in different scenarios is also proposed. The experimental results on two real-world datasets of two learning courses of Discrete Mathematics and Introduction to Computer Science show that the proposed methods have promising practical applications. They can help students and lecturers find the best way to enhance their learning methods and teaching style. Full article

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the influence of social context and morality on malevolent creativity. The sample consisted of 217 (176 female, 41 male) undergraduate and graduate students in a Southeastern public research university in the U.S. Six different open-ended socially oriented problems (three Divergent Thinking (DT) Social Games and three DT Realistic Presented Problems tasks) were used to explore the way malevolent creativity differs in two sets of problem tasks. Realistic Presented Problems are constructed differently from Social Games tasks in such a way that they include unfair, disturbing, and threatening contextual factors, while Social Games problems have more neutral and everyday problem scenarios. Participants also completed the Self-Report of Creative Traits and morality measures. The findings of the study indicated that fluency and originality were related significantly to malevolent creativity. Further, social contexts in DT tasks led to a significant difference in malevolent creativity. Participants generated significantly more malevolent creative responses in Realistic Presented Problems than in Social Games tasks. The results also revealed that morality was significantly correlated with creative personality, but the results provided no evidence that morality moderates the relation between creativity indices and malevolent creativity. Full article

Traditional theoretical mechanics courses often emphasize the rote learning of principles over practical applications. This focus can diminish student engagement and leave graduates ill prepared for applying concepts to real engineering problems. To address these challenges, this study introduces a bidirectional teaching reform that integrates a front-end focus on cultivating engineering thinking with a back-end focus on personalized assignment design. In the front-end reform, active learning methods, including case-based and project-based learning (PBL) within a structured BOPPPS lesson framework, are used to connect theoretical content with real-world engineering scenarios, thereby strengthening problem-solving skills and engagement among students. The back-end reform introduces personalized and collaborative assignments tailored to the interests and abilities of students, such as individualized problem sets, programming-based exercises, and team projects that encourage innovation and a deeper exploration of mechanics concepts. By addressing both in-class instruction and post-class work, these two reforms complement each other, providing a cohesive learning experience from initial concept acquisition to practical application. Implemented together in a second-year undergraduate mechanics course, this integrated approach was observed to increase student motivation, improve students’ ability to apply theory in practice, and enhance overall teaching effectiveness while fostering stronger collaborative skills. This bidirectional reform provides an effective model for modernizing theoretical mechanics education and prepares students to meet contemporary engineering needs by bridging the longstanding gap between theoretical knowledge and practical application. Full article

Critical thinking is a skill of great importance in our current and future society. Its value goes beyond all theoretical doubt although it requires more practical development, especially in terms of coordinated and evidence-based approaches. In addition, the ethical foundation must permeate the entire critical process, indicating what to criticize, for what, why, how, and when, elements that should not be left to improvisation or what is traditionally done. The aim of this research was to describe the ethical connotations that come together in the critical process. To this end, we focused on a group case study of undergraduate and graduate students of Psychosocial and Socio-educational studies in Spain, collecting information with instruments built ad hoc. The results show little practical awareness of the weight of ethics in critical decisions, producing a change in orientation regarding educational training to improve decision-making based on critical thinking and ethics. Full article

Aggressive behaviour encompasses a spectrum of emotional responses, ranging from mild irritation to intense anger and fury. The goals of the present research were to develop a reduced and adapted version of the Buss–Perry Aggression Questionnaire (VRA-AQ) for Portuguese college students, to explore its relationship with negative life events as well as to ascertain the importance of self-regulation and resilience in preventing aggressive behaviour among young people from higher education, and to explore the differences between genders, academic year, and socioeconomic status to examine the risk factors of aggressive behaviour. The validation of the reduced and adapted Portuguese version of the VRA-AQ was carried out on a Portuguese university sample (N = 2991). There were three main focuses of data analysis: descriptive statistics, correlations, and factor analyses. Differences between genders and academic year were found in men, and undergraduate students displayed higher averages of physical aggression, negative life events, and the impact of these events, while women and post-graduate students exhibited higher averages of self-regulation and resilience. Regarding SES, youth from low to medium-low socioeconomic backgrounds demonstrated higher averages in overall aggression, physical aggression, anger, hostility, negative life events, and the impact of these life events. Conversely, those from higher socioeconomic backgrounds displayed higher averages in resilience. Therefore, it is essential to prevent aggressive behaviour in students, and several strategies can be implemented based on the findings, namely, gender-specific interventions; academic year targeted support; socioeconomic support programmes; promotion of positive coping mechanisms; creating supportive environments; and education on conflict resolution. Full article

Pedagogical partnership programs often facilitate collaborations between students and faculty to bolster inclusive instructional methodologies and equitable opportunities for classroom engagement. Improving equitable learning experiences for students is of particular importance within physician assistant (PA) education given the efforts toward increasing diversity within the profession. We began to explore ways to increase social equity and inclusion in a PA program by incorporating a student–faculty partnership, which was established between an undergraduate student and a graduate PA program faculty member. The partnership included classroom observations, syllabus/lecture review, and mid-semester feedback from the student partner, as well as weekly meetings between the student partner and faculty member to iteratively revise approaches to course instruction and student engagement. At the end of the course, we gathered survey data on the partnership’s impact on PA students’ perceptions of classroom climate and the PA program in general. Student responses indicate that students experienced a sense of improved classroom climate, open communication, trust, and support because of the partnership. Full article

Pedagogical partnership experiences have been found to support students in developing professional skills, but there is little documentation on whether and how those skills are exercised later in the professional roles they might pursue. We were interested in this question, particularly given the potential for pedagogical partnership to contribute to social equity by prompting the development and eventual application of skills that are critical for professional success yet often not explicitly taught. At an R1 university, one-on-one semi-structured interviews were conducted with alumni of a pedagogical partnership program to prompt reflection on skills they developed in their time in the program and how they might relate to their post-undergraduate endeavors, including academic and professional career contexts. Participants’ reflections suggested that involvement in pedagogical partnerships impacted their development and application of professional skills, such as relationship building, communication, ability to navigate power imbalances, pedagogical knowledge, and equity-related skills. It also contributed to the development of personal attributes such as self-confidence, resilience, and flexibility. Through this research, we uncovered ways in which pedagogical partnership programs can provide an opportunity for student partners, who often hold marginalized identities, to develop some of the tacit knowledge and skills necessary to become successful in their careers post-graduation. Full article

Objectives: Food insecurity among college students, combined with limited nutrition knowledge and barriers to healthy eating, significantly impacts diet quality and fruit and vegetable intake. Efforts to address these issues are further complicated by the challenges of accurately and efficiently collecting dietary data in research settings. This study aimed to explore the relationship between nutrition knowledge and fruit/vegetable intake using skin, plasma, and dietary carotenoid levels as biomarkers. Methods: Undergraduate and graduate students aged 18 years and older (n = 166) from a California public university were recruited. The sample was predominately female (n = 133, 80%), with 30 males (18%) and three individuals (2%) identifying as non-binary. Food security was assessed using the USDA’s 10-item Adult Food Security Survey Module and nutrition knowledge through a validated questionnaire. Biological data included blood samples and skin carotenoid measurements (Veggie Meter^®). Dietary quality (HEI-2015) and carotenoid intake were assessed through Diet ID™, a photo-based assessment tool. Results: The mean nutrition knowledge scores were 36.55 ± 8.83 out of 58 points, and the mean skin carotenoid score was 307.07 ± 110.22. Higher knowledge scores were associated with increased plasma carotenoids, HEI-score, and Diet ID™ total carotenoids. Food security classification did not significantly impact nutrition knowledge but did influence HEI scores and skin carotenoid levels, with very low food security linked to poorer diet quality and lower carotenoid levels. Conclusions: Nutrition knowledge may serve as a significant predictor of fruit and vegetable intake in university students. Despite this correlation, the impact of overall diet quality is potentially hindered by an individual’s food security status. Therefore, while knowledge is critical, addressing food insecurity is essential for enhancing diet quality among college students. Full article