Enhancing Career Development Through the Career Success Club

The career development of students, demonstrated by students performing appropriate career developmental tasks, is important to institutions of higher education because career developed students are more likely to have career objectives, persist in their academic goals, gain career-related work experience, find employment in their chosen fields, and graduate. The purpose of this study was to determine if the career development of students by class level had been enhanced by participation in a career management plan specifically prepared for undergraduates. The intervention of a career management plan (i.e., the Career Success Club) was successful, especially for seniors and middles, in enhancing the career development of undergraduates. Career management plans may help students that are academically undecided to become more connected to their majors by focusing more on academic and career matters.     

On Kristjánsson on Aristotelian character education

I pursue three of the many lines of thought that were raised in my mind by Kristjánsson’s engaging book. In the first section, I try to get clearer on what exactly Aristotelian character education (ACE) is, and suggest areas where I hope the view is developed in more detail. In the second and longest section, I draw some lessons from social psychology about the pervasive role of what I call ‘Surprising Dispositions,’ and invite Kristjánsson to take up the difficult challenge of clarifying how ACE would help to address their influence on our thought and action. Finally, in section three I consider whether there is any robust empirical support for ACE, and if not, where that leaves us.     

A Reconsideration of Cognitive Load Theory

Cognitive load theory has been very influential in educational psychology during the last decade in providing guidelines for instructional design. Whereas numerous empirical studies have used it as a theoretical framework, a closer analysis reveals some fundamental conceptual problems within the theory. Various generalizations of empirical findings become questionable because the theory allows different and contradicting possibilities to explain some empirical results. The article investigates these theoretical problems by analyzing the conceptual distinctions between different kinds of cognitive load. It emphasizes that reduction of cognitive load can sometimes impair learning rather than enhancing it. Cognitive load theory is reconsidered both from the perspective of Vygotski’s concept of the zone of proximal development and from the perspective of research on implicit learning. Task performance and learning are considered as related, but nevertheless fundamentally different processes. Conclusions are drawn for the further development of the theory as well as for empirical research and instructional practice.

A practical approach for applying online remote experiments: OnPReX

The development of Internet technologies stimulates the increase of online technology-supported education in universities. Online learning based on remote experiments is capable of diminishing the scantiness in practical courses. In this paper, we present online practical courses based on remote experiments (OnPReX). These courses consist of online experiments, interactive graphics and an online tutoring-system organised at the Berlin Institute of Technology (TUB). We developed two online practical courses, one focusing on classical and the other on modern physics, for bachelor and intermediate diploma engineering students. Our online practical courses based on remote experiments took place in two test phases during two semesters. These courses were evaluated and the results were used to improve the courses. Our online practical courses on remote experiments have successfully been integrated as electives at the TUB.     

Antecedents of Norwegian beginning teachers’ turnover intentions

This study aims at exploring several individual, organizational, and contextual factors that may affect beginning teachers’ turnover intentions during their first years of practice. The sample consists of 227 beginning teachers (69% female and 31% male) from 133 schools in Norway. The results show four important antecedents of beginning teachers’ turnover intentions: collective teacher efficacy, teacher–principal trust, role conflict, and affective commitment. Our findings suggest that organizational and contextual factors, and not necessarily individual competence perceptions, have a significant impact on beginning teachers’ turnover intentions. Also the findings suggest that beginning teachers should be studied separately from more experienced teachers. Implications for school leadership are discussed.     

Microfluidic platform for separation and extraction of plasma from whole blood using dielectrophoresis

Microfluidic based blood plasma extraction is a fundamental necessity that will facilitate many future lab-on-a-chip based point-of-care diagnostic systems. However, current approaches for providing this analyte are hampered by the requirement to provide external pumping or dilution of blood, which result in low effective yield, lower concentration of target constituents, and complicated functionality. This paper presents a capillary-driven, dielectrophoresis-enabled microfluidic system capable of separating and extracting cell-free plasma from small amounts of whole human blood. This process takes place directly on-chip, and without the requirement of dilution, thus eliminating the prerequisite of pre-processed blood samples and external liquid handling systems. The microfluidic chip takes advantage of a capillary pump for driving whole blood through the main channel and a cross flow filtration system for extracting plasma from whole blood. This filter is actively unblocked through negative dielectrophoresis forces, dramatically enhancing the volume of extracted plasma. Experiments using whole human blood yield volumes of around 180 nl of cell-free, undiluted plasma. We believe that implementation of various integrated biosensing techniques into this plasma extraction system could enable multiplexed detection of various biomarkers.     

Characteristics impacting on session rating of perceived exertion training load in Australian footballers

The relationship between external training load and session rating of perceived exertion (s-RPE) training load and the impact that playing experience, playing position and 2-km time-trial performance had on s-RPE training load were explored. From 39 Australian Football players, 6.9 ± 4.6 training sessions were analysed, resulting in 270 samples. Microtechnology devices provided external training load (distance, average speed, high-speed running distance, player load (PL) and player load_slow (PL_slow)). The external training load measures had moderate to very large associations (r, 95% CI) with s-RPE training load, average speed (0.45, 0.35–0.54), high-speed running distance (0.51, 0.42–0.59), PL_slow (0.80, 0.75–0.84), PL (0.86, 0.83–0.89) and distance (0.88, 0.85–0.90). Differences were described using effect sizes (d ±95% CL). When controlling for external training load, the 4- to 5-year players had higher s-RPE training load than the 0- to 1- (0.44 ± 0.33) and 2- to 3-year players (0.51 ± 0.30), ruckmen had moderately higher s-RPE training load than midfielders (0.82 ± 0.58), and there was a 0.2% increase in s-RPE training load per 1 s increase in time-trial (95% CI: 0.07–0.34). Experience, position and time-trial performance impacted the relationship between external training load and s-RPE training load. This suggests that a given external training load may result in different internal responses between athletes, potentially leaving individuals at risk of overtraining or failing to elicit positive adaptation. It is therefore vital that coaches and trainers give consideration to these mediators of s-RPE training load.     

Content-Related Interactions in Self-initiated Study Groups

The central goal of the present exploratory study was to investigate the nature of the content-related interactions in study groups independently organized by college organic chemistry students. We were particularly interested in the identification of the different factors that affected the emergence of opportunities for students to co-construct understanding and engage in higher levels of cognitive processing. Our results are based on the analysis of in situ observations of 34 self-initiated study sessions involving over a 100 students in three academic semesters. The investigation revealed three major types of social regulation processes, teaching, tutoring, and co-construction in the observed study sessions. However, the extent to which students engaged in each of them varied widely from one session to another. This variability was mostly determined by the specific composition of the study groups and the nature of the study tasks in which they were engaged. Decisions about how to organize the study session, the relative content knowledge and conceptual understanding expressed by the participants, as well as the cognitive level of the problems that guided group work had a strong impact on the nature of student interactions. Nevertheless, group talk in the observed study groups was mostly focused on low-level cognitive processes. The results of our work provide insights on how to better support students' productive engagement in study groups.