Professional and Personal Competency Development in Near-peer Tutors of Gross Anatomy: A Longitudinal Mixed-methods Study

There are many benefits to peer and near-peer tutoring. The current literature suggests that near-peer teaching within the domain of gross anatomy may lead to the development of numerous competencies for burgeoning medical professionals. The aim of this study was a quantitative and qualitative approach to explore which professional and personal competencies anatomy tutors developed as a result of their teaching activities in a gross anatomy course at a medical school in Germany. For a period of 18 months, 24 peer tutors were followed and queried multiple times via questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. It was found that most of the skills tutors developed or strengthened over one semester matched most of the core competencies described in various official competency frameworks used for physician education. In particular, tutors thought that tutoring gross anatomy had improved their knowledge of professional behavior as well as their communication skills. They also felt that they had learned to take on more responsibility and to use available resources more effectively. Overall, tutoring gross anatomy was perceived as very challenging, but also very rewarding, mainly because it provided the opportunity to develop and strengthen important skills such as self-confidence, self-awareness, positive thinking, self-insight, and stress management. Ultimately, these are all factors that contribute to resilience, an important attribute for physicians.     

Evolution of pre-service teachers’ attitudes towards learning science during an introductory science unit

Primary teachers, despite their critical role in fostering student interest in science, lack confidence and have negative attitudes towards teaching science, with this trend starting during initial teacher education. Though research on attitudes towards teaching science is well established, less is known about attitudes towards learning science. In order to advance our understanding in this area, this study mapped the entry and evolution of attitudinal profiles towards learning science of 108 primary education pre-service teachers undertaking a first-year science unit. Participants completed an online survey tapping on self-determination, grade motivation, self-efficacy, difficulty, interest, anxiety and enjoyment in science before the commencement of the unit (T1) and at the end of it (T2). Clustering methods were used to group participants into homogenous attitudinal profiles at both points in time. Subsequently, daughter profile analysis was used to examine qualitative changes in final profiles respective to entry. Four distinct attitudinal profiles were identified with 47% of the participants exhibiting the least favourable profiles at the start of the science unit. Migration (T1 to T2) was more prevalent from the least to the most favourable profiles, however, it did occur in the opposite direction. Findings revealed that, though pre-service teachers increased their confidence in their ability to learn science, their self-determination decreased in all but one of the eight resulting daughter profiles.     

The relational antecedents of project-entrepreneurship: Network centrality, team composition and project performance

The relational antecedents of project-based enterprises have not yet received systematic investigation. These ventures are typically created by individual freelancers who are usually embedded in networks of collaborative relationships that convey the information and resources required to carry out new projects. Using a relational perspective of entrepreneurial discovery and team composition, we analyze the performance determinants of project-entrepreneurs, namely the individuals who are responsible for launching and carrying out those projects. We argue that project-entrepreneurs’ performance is related to their degree of centrality within the social network, and their familiarity with the selected project-team as captured by the distribution of ties among team members. We test our hypotheses within the Hollywood Film Industry over the period 1992–2003. The findings point to the existence of diminishing returns to centrality and performance benefits from assembling teams that combine old-timers and newcomers. The theoretical contributions and implications of the study are discussed.     

How effort towards challenge is depicted in stories for young children: an Indonesian study

Asia Pacific Education Review - This study examined the nature of effort towards challenge in stories recommended for young children in Indonesian schools. One hundred and nine stories with...     

When Do Pictures Help Learning from Expository Text? Multimedia and Modality Effects in Primary Schools

Adding pictures to a text is very common in today’s education and might be especially beneficial for elementary school children, whose abilities to read and understand pure text have not yet been fully developed. Our study examined whether adding pictures supports learning of a biology text in fourth grade and whether the text modality (spoken or written) plays a role. Results indicate that overall, pictures enhanced learning but that the text should be spoken rather than written. These results are in line with instructional design principles derived from common multimedia learning theories. In addition, for elementary school children, it might be advisable to read texts out to the children. Reading by themselves and looking at pictures might overload children’s cognitive capacities and especially their visual channel. In this case, text and pictures would not be integrated into one coherent mental model, and effective learning would not take place.