Higher education policy and manpower training have failed to meet the requirement of rapidly changing society and employers' expectation in Taiwan, resulting in a significant gap between university ...education and employment. Student employability should also be a focus of all higher education institutions, although whether a high degree of student learning outcomes can represent a high degree of student employability is still unclear. This study explores the relationships among pedagogy for employability, the problem-based teaching mode, absorptive capacity, and student employability in higher education institutions (HEIs). Based on analysis of a total sample of 553 undergraduates from 16 Taiwanese HEIs using structural equation modeling, the results show that the influences of pedagogy for employability and the problem-based teaching mode on absorptive capacity and student employability are positively statistically significant. Based on the findings, specific suggestions and managerial implications for HEIs, curriculum and instruction planning, and future research are provided.
The purpose of the research is to see if Problem-based Learning (PBL) can be successfully used in veterinary medicine. Research results show that PBL offers several advantages (it contributes towards ...the reduction of information overload; it develops generic skills and aptitudes; it facilitates an integrated core curriculum; it facilitates the relevance of curriculum content; it fosters active, deep learning, improved understanding, and retention and development of lifelong learning skills; it is a constructivist approach; it makes the students more responsible for their learning; and it motivates both teachers and students) over traditional teaching methods. However, it also has several well recognised disadvantages (it deprives students’ access to a particular inspirational teacher who, in a traditional curriculum, would deliver lectures to a large group; it is difficult and frustrating for the tutors who cannot “teach”; it makes students be unsure about how much self-directed study to do and what information is relevant and useful; it needs more human resources to take part in the tutoring process; it needs more material resources for the students to access simultaneously). The conclusion is that PBL can successfully be used in the teaching of veterinary medicine-related disciplines provided the teachers work on its disadvantages.
Student employability is a key aspect of any university degree. The relationship between high student learning outcomes and high employability is a problem that needs to be addressed and improved by ...colleges and universities. Students with high employability can find good jobs after graduation and perform well in the workplace. Employability is associated with the success of university education, thus giving the university a good reputation. This study explores the development of employability, alongside teaching and student learning abilities to examine how these variables affect student employability. The study collected 442 responses to a questionnaire to investigate the relationship between pedagogy for employability, problem-based learning, absorptive capacity, and student employability based on a structural model. The SEM results show that pedagogy for employability and problem-based learning positively correlate to absorptive capacity; pedagogy for employability and absorptive capacity positively correlate to student employability. We then analyzed a case study teaching intervention strategy with 221 students from the school of management and discuss the differential results of all variables. Results showed that the test group was superior to the control group in each variable performance, indicating that the intervention strategy proved effective. Based on these findings, this study proposes suggestions for future research.
Contribution: This article explores the impact of the combination of various pedagogical approaches to deliver high-quality learning experiences for online-based engineering students. Though existing ...research extensively studied online education approaches, limited research has investigated how to bridge the gap between online cloud-based and campus-based students more effectively for obtaining hands-on engineering skills. Background: Given that engineers aim to solve real-world problems, engineering graduates need to obtain relevant experiences for employability. However, it is challenging to deliver such experiences in online education, which motivates innovative ways to integrate practical experiments in Web-based resources. Intended Outcomes: Practical and industry-relevant skills with flexibility in terms of time and pace of learning are intended to be achieved in the teaching framework which is expected to improve learning experiences for online students. Application Design: The adopted mixed pedagogical approach revolves around real-life problem-based learning delivered in the online mode using recorded experiments on energy-efficient design for three cohorts of the fourth-year engineering students, two of which are completely cloud-based students and the other one has a mix of on-campus and cloud-based students. Findings: The effectiveness of the adopted approach is measured through quantitative and qualitative evaluation tools. The evaluation demonstrated that cloud student engagement and motivation improved substantially by integrating explicit, analytical, as well as embodied learnings while enabling them to perform equally well as compared to the campus-based students.
In this work we present the development and preliminary evaluation of several problem-based video podcasts addressed to students of the subject “Coding and Cryptography”. Specifically, this ...experiment has been carried out with the students of both the Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics and the Master’s degree of Mathematical Research and Modelling, Statistics and Computation, at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU). Our results suggest that students found these complementary videos helpful for their learning process, indicating that this methodology could be appropriate for subjects treating complex concepts, such as those in the last years of degree or in master courses.
RESUMEN La teoría de la enseñanza problémica fue conocida en Cuba en la década de los ochenta del siglo pasado y al ser desarrollada por un grupo de profesores de la Universidad Pedagógica Enrique ...José Varona, se alcanzó cierto acercamiento del magisterio cubano a su esencia y funciones. A pesar de que se trata de una concepción del proceso docente-educativo que desarrolla el pensamiento, ha sido poco empleada en la práctica de las aulas, por requerir determinadas habilidades docentes para la creación de situaciones problémicas, que constituyen su eslabón central. En este artículo la autora analiza su estructura metodológica, enfatiza en algunos trabajos de la experiencia cubana que han enriquecido su teoría y reflexiona en torno a su importancia, lo cual justifica la necesidad de continuar trabajando en su actualización, para lograr una mayor aproximación de maestros y profesores, a las posibilidades de su empleo, así como su divulgación.
In industrial engineering degrees in Spain, mathematics subjects are usually taught during the first two academic years. Consequently, it is often the case that students sometimes do not feel ...motivated to learn subjects such as Mathematics II (calculus). Nevertheless, this subject is fundamental for understanding other subjects in the degree study plan, as well as for the graduate’s future professional career as an engineer. To address this, a problem-based teaching methodology was carried out with the help of a fourth-year student who explained an activity to first-year students in a manner which was both friendly and approachable. In this experiment, the student went through a series of practical problems taken from different engineering subjects, which required multivariable integrals to be calculated and which he had learned in mathematics as a first-year student. In addition, a method based on pre-test and post-test assessments was applied. From this work, various benefits were observed in terms of learning, as well as an increase in the level of motivation of first-year students. There was a greater appreciation of the usefulness of calculus and computer programs to solve real-life problems, and the students generally responded positively to this type of activity.
Students with different undergraduate trainings may have different responses after taking a combined course with both clinical and basic topics. This study investigated the learning experience of ...basic science and clinical dentistry by postgraduate students in Institute of Clinical Dentistry (ICD) and Institute of Oral Biology (IOB) after finishing the specific course.
Semi-structure questionnaire filled by internet process was used. The data were collected and analyzed statistically.
Nineteen participants who took the course of “panel discussion of oral oncology” since 2014 to 2018 were included in this study. Of the 19 postgraduate students, 11 were from ICD and 8 from IOB. Both ICD and IOB students gave high scores for the items such as benefit for the research, appropriateness of the discussion topics, and suitableness of problem-based teaching model. ICD students tended to have better fitness of interdisciplinary learning (P > 0.05), better understanding of clinical topics (significant, P = 0.02), and a higher willing to recommend other students to take the course (P > 0.05) than IOB students. However, IOB students tended to have a better understanding of basic science topics than ICD students, although the difference was not significant (P > 0.05).
Our problem-based and constructive teaching course and the selected topics are proper and helpful for students’ future research. The students with the clinical training background are prone to have better understanding of clinical topics, while those with the basic science training tend to have better understanding of basic science topics.
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