Students' transition into higher education: The role of self-efficacy,regulation strategies,and academic achievements

Transition into higher education (HE) has received increased interest in recent years, since it represents a challenging period for students. The aim of this study was to further understand the associations between self-efficacy, academic achievements, and regulation in first-year university students during their transition into HE. The convenience sample consisted of 374 first-year university students (230 females, 61.5%), aged from 18 to 33 (M = 19.86, SD = 1.51) and recruited from an Italian university. Self-efficacy was assessed using the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire; regulation strategies were assessed with the Inventory of Learning Patterns of Students; and a self-reported grade point average was taken as an indicator of each student's academic performance. Result shows that students' self-efficacy was positively associated with self-regulation and negatively associated with a lack of regulation. Students with higher self-efficacy and self-regulation strategies had better academic performance. Female students performed better in academic activities and adopted more external regulation strategies. The findings represent an opportunity for university institutions to consider the interventions they provide to first-year students in order to facilitate the successful transition from secondary school; they also provide researchers with further knowledge about the effect of self-efficacy, and regulation strategies on students' adjustment to HE.     

School Self-evaluation Towards a European Dimension

This article describes the development of a Comenius project focused on school self-evaluation involving partners from four European countries and resulting in an international course which took place in Italy. The planning, the implementation and the evaluation of the course are presented, clarifying the difficulties and the constraints met and the solutions adopted, the weak and the strong aspects as they emerged from the evaluation undertaken, as well as some recommendations for improvement. In conclusion, some general observations are made on the project as a whole.     

Subjective Well-Being Decreasing With Age: New Research on Children Over 8

An increasing number of scientific publications have provided data from different countries suggesting subjective well-being (SWB) continuously decreases during adolescence. A review of these publications reveals authors have used dissimilar scales in diverse countries. Using data from the international Children's Worlds project (N = 48,040), involving 15 countries, a comparative analysis was performed to determine how mean scores evolve with different SWB scales from the age of 8 onwards. The results support the hypothesis that the tendency of SWB to decrease with age starts at around 10 years of age in most countries, while also confirming that different psychometric scales display different levels of sensitivity to diverse sociocultural contexts and more than one should be used in any research on children and adolescents’ SWB.     

Question formation: A teachable art

Research question or topic formulation is an important skill for individuals to learn in order to become information literate. There are few reports in the literature on how to teach this skill and assess the instruction delivered. This article presents instructional strategies and an active learning activity that librarians can use to teach students how to develop research topics.     

The Somatic Marker Hypotheses, and What the Iowa Gambling Task Does and Does not Show

Damasio's somatic marker hypothesis (SMH) is a prominent neuroscientifichypothesis about the mechanisms implementing decision-making.This paper argues that, since its inception, the SMH has notbeen clearly formulated. It is possible to identify at leasttwo different hypotheses, which make different predictions:SMH-G, which claims that somatic states generally implementpreferences and are needed to make a decision; and SMH-S, whichspecifically claims that somatic states assist decision-makingby anticipating the long-term outcomes of available options.This paper also argues that neither hypothesis is adequatelysupported empirically; the task originally proposed to testSMH is not a good test for SMH-S, and its results do not supportSMH-G either. In addition, it is not clear how SMH-G could beempirically invalidated, given its general formulation. Suggestionsare made that could help provide evidence for SMH-S, and makeSMH-G more specific.

1 Introduction

2 Two Hypotheses: SomaticMarkers as Embodied Preferences, andas a Source of Farsightedness

3 Lack of Evidence for Somatic Farsightedness

4 Does MakingDecisions Require Somatic Markers, and can itbe Shown in theLaboratory?

5 Conclusion

     

Establishing Appropriate Conditions: Students Learning to Apply a Theorem

During a sequence of tutorials conducted by the first author, it became evident that students were not seeing how to apply the theorem concerning a continuous function on a closed and bounded interval attaining its extreme values in situations in which it is necessary first to construct the closed and bounded interval by reasoning about properties concerning asymptotes. The paper describes 1 tutorial with 10 students and a follow-up revision session with 2 of the students the same day concerning the use of this theorem in which the tutor used the pedagogic strategy of learner-generated examples. The students’ responses and the tutor’s observations are analysed using constructs of example spaces, structure of attention and dimensions of possible variation.     

School readiness of moderately preterm children at preschool age

The study investigates the preschool readiness of moderately preterm children and, in particular, the likely presence of learning disabilities at preschool age. Its theoretical model detects linguistic comprehension and expression; memory-related metacognition and cognition skills; orientation and motor coordination skills; premathematics and preliteracy ones. The research project involved an experimental group made up of 55 moderately preterm children (mean age?=?62 months, mean gestational age?=?34.6 weeks), without any clinical neonatal complications, and low birth weight (M?=?2,100 g, SD?=?350 g); a control group made up of 55 full-term children without pre- and perinatal complications. The children’s primary school reference teachers were given a questionnaire (Observative Questionnaire for Early Identification of Learning Disabilities), which was aimed at identifying any likely social and cognitive skill deficits at preschool age. The data, submitted to nonparametric univariate variance, show how scores of moderately preterm children in the metacognition [U _{(n1 e?n2?=?55)}?=?35, p?=?0.04, r?=?0.49] are statistically lower, other cognitive skills (memory, orientation, and visual–motor coordination) [U _{(n1?e?n2?=?55)}?=?32, p?=?0.02, r?=?0.45], premathematics [U _{(n1?e?n2?=?55)}?=?32, p?=?0.02, r?=?0.44], and the total score [U _{(n1?e?n2?=?55)}?=?31, p?=?0.02, r?=?0.12]. Such data would seem to suggest the need for hypothesizing preventive training and educational paths as a prerequisite for the development of the school abilities.     

The effect of performance-oriented funding in higher education: evidence from the staff recruitment budget in Italian higher education

Higher Education - This study, which aims to investigate some potential effects derived from the adoption of performance-oriented funding in the higher education system, is focused on competitive...     

Sleep Disturbance and Expressive Language Development in Preschool‐Age Children With Down Syndrome

Recent evidence has suggested that sleep may facilitate language learning. This study examined variation in language ability in 29 toddlers with Down syndrome (DS) in relation to levels of sleep disruption. Toddlers with DS and poor sleep (66%, n = 19) showed greater deficits on parent‐reported and objective measures of language, including vocabulary and syntax. Correlations between sleep and language were found in groups with equivalent medical and social backgrounds and after control for relevant behavioral comorbidities, including autism symptoms. These results emphasize the important role of quality sleep in all children's expressive language development, and may help increase our understanding of the etiology of language deficits in developmental disorders, potentially leading to new treatment approaches.