Strengthening internal quality assurance processes: facilitating student evaluation committees to contribute

Student evaluation committees play a crucial role in internal quality assurance processes as representatives of the student body. However, the students on these committees sometimes experience difficulty in providing constructive and structured feedback to faculty in an environment characterised by a strong power differential between student and staff. This study aimed to evaluate a leadership and quality assurance training implemented for students involved in internal quality assurance. Furthermore, we explored how students give shape to their internal quality assurance role. Students from three health sciences programmes participated in a mixed methods study to evaluate the training and reflect on their internal quality assurance role. Overall, the students were very enthusiastic about the training. Qualitative data analysis indicated that in their internal quality assurance role, students: (1) harnessed the power of the entire student population; (2) tried to create focus and take charge; (3) searched for a common ground with staff, and (4) they explained how they dealt with the power differential. Providing training for students with internal quality assurance roles is a valuable endeavour. Future research needs to investigate further ways to help students to contribute to internal quality assurance processes in higher education.     

Using body donor demographics to assist the implementation of donation programs in Brazil

The use of human material in anatomy education depends upon the generosity of body donors. However, little is known regarding the demographics of body donors in Brazil, where voluntary body donation is a relatively rare phenomenon. Hence, the aim of the present study was to elucidate the demographic profile of applicants to the Body Donation Program (BDP) at the Federal University of Health Sciences of Porto Alegre in Brazil, as well as to assess whether the observed characteristics of body donors are unique to that sample, or if they merely reflect the characteristics of the regional population. Information derived from the specific forms filled out by donors between January 2008 and June 2016 at the time of registration were collected. Data from 416 forms were analyzed. Based on this study, the typical applicant in Brazil is typically a white female (67.4%), over 60 years of age (60.3%), unmarried or single (70.6%), affiliated with a religious group (89.1%), of middle class background (40.4%), who has completed high school and/or holds a university degree (93.8%). The motivation of donors was, in most cases, an altruistic gesture, represented by the desire to help society and science. Elucidating these demographic characteristics of potential donors may help identify the target public to which information regarding body donation campaigns could be directed. Anat Sci Educ 10: 475–486. © 2017 American Association of Anatomists.     

Neighborhood poverty and early transition to sexual activity in young adolescents: a developmental ecological approach

This study examined how the link between neighborhood poverty and the timing of sexual initiation varies as a function of age, gender, and background characteristics. A sample of N = 2,596 predominately White Canadian adolescents from the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth was used. Sexual initiations occurring between 12 and 15 years old were considered. Results showed that younger adolescent females who lived in poor neighborhoods and who had a history of conduct problems were more likely to report early sexual activity. Peer characteristics partly accounted for this susceptibility. Among adolescent males, no direct neighborhood effects were found, but those who had combined risks at multiple levels appeared more vulnerable. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Combination of logical conditions and arithmetic operations to assign a mark to a course based on multidimensional learning outcomes

Assessment is a notorious source of preoccupation for faculty and university governing bodies, especially when an institution initiates curricular reforms which shift the programme learning outcomes for knowledge to competencies. One obstacle to acceptance arises from a culture of quantitative assessment (often represented by a single mark), which is at odds with the concept of outcome assessment which is by essence subjective, qualitative and multidimensional. The method presented here is specifically concerned with learning activities where students need to demonstrate competency in learning outcomes of different natures. It describes a methodological framework that can be used in any programme that aims at developing multidimensional learners, but operates in a context where the final assessment product is a single quantitative grade. This method follows a classical approach to the evaluation of each learning outcome. It then proposes an innovative way of ranking students by categorising their overall performance based on conditions that reflect the integral nature of the learning process, to allow teaching staff to assign a range of marks for each student. Finally, a last step allows a quantitative ranking of students within each category, yielding a single quantitative mark for the course while remaining coherent with the learning goals.     

Representations over the Earth’s shape and the process of day and night from Nahua indigenous schoolchildren / Representaciones sobre la forma de la Tierra y del proceso día y noche en niños de escuelas indígenas Nahuas

This research presents the way in which children from a Nahua indigenous community build representations of the Earth’s shape, as well as the process that causes day and night. Concepts from school and local culture were studied. For the first case, a questionnaire was applied to 331 children, out of which 38 children were then interviewed on the topics from the questionnaire. For the cultural ideas, three teachers from the region and 30 children from the sample were interviewed. The results show that the representations depend on the form of questioning and the existence of three models: a flat structure with a celestial dome and mechanisms that hide or remove the Sun or the Moon in order to create day and night; a spherical structure with a surrounding sky, where the Sun and Moon rise and set; and a transitional model with a hollow sphere, flat surface and celestial dome. Cultural ideas do not appear to have any influence over these models, probably due to a loss of the community’s cosmogonic knowledge and the age of the children.