In this paper, we present a comparative analysis between registered gifted Slovenian, Gambian, and Indian students in which we sought to find out how they perform in solving selected mental tasks, ...where we were focused on logical-mathematical and spatial intelligence as a function of the social environment from which the students came. We found that the results for the test groups differed. Out of ten task sets, Slovenian students performed better than their Indian and Gambian peers in as many as seven task sets; in four tasks we found a statistically significant difference between Slovenian and Indian children, and a comparison between Slovenian and Gambian students shows that Slovenian children scored better on mental task sets in all groups.
Abstract
Background:
The authors had earlier studied the utility of stereoscopic projection of neuroanatomic three-dimensional models through AnaVu (a low resource stereoscopic projection system) on ...medical students. The tool was developed by collaboration between anatomy teachers, radiologists, and visualization experts. Although the preliminary results indicated advantages in learning, the perspective of the anatomy teachers, the end users of the tool, was not known and hence this study.
Methodology:
A cross-sectional study of the observational nature was conducted where Faculty of South Kerala was informed that they will be given an opportunity for a hands-on experience to use AnaVu. A 15-min session was given to each teacher. Their feedbacks were collected using a prevalidated questionnaire tool and open comments were also collected. Analysis was done using the software SPSS and RQDA.
Results:
Thirteen faculty members participated in the study. Quantitative analysis showed that teachers were able to teach (4 ± 0.57), likely to use it for teaching if made available (4 ± 0.71), found it easy to use (3.31 ± 0.48), and realistic to anatomy (3.62 ± 0.87). Qualitative analysis showed general appreciation and advantage in teaching spatial anatomy. Faculty also pointed limitations such as lack of interaction with students, eye strain, and need for training to use the tool.
Conclusion:
The study points to the utility of AnaVu, a low resource tool in teaching spatial anatomy. The study also dealt with the concerns that need to be addressed during the scaling of such a tool for utility in the Indian Anatomy education scenario.
Background: The new competency-based MBBS undergraduate curriculum articulates 24 competencies in geriatrics. Acknowledging the dearth of faculty in the country, a group of geriatricians developed ...and conducted an online modular course for final-year medical students. Methods: This 6-week online course included 13 modules and the study materials were developed through a two-stage vetting process. The course was advertised to potential students through social media and was delivered over Google classroom platform. Students' learning was assessed by multiple-choice questions (MCQs), and the course was evaluated with comparison of pretest and posttest, feedbacks from students with both structured and open-ended questionnaires. Results: Out of 200 eligible students from 38 medical colleges who applied, 142 students joined the course. Out of 142 students joined, 98 (69%) completed the course with 80% attendance; 91 (64.1%) secured scores above 50%; and 46 (32.4%) secured scores above 80% in MCQ test. Posttest scores were significantly higher than pretest scores (P < 0.001) with medium Cohen's effect size. Median scores of feedbacks on 20-point Likert scale for all modules were 15 or 16. Content analysis of qualitative feedback showed appreciation for the structure and content of the course, praise for the expertise and commitment of the faculty in delivering it effectively, scope for further improvement, and positive change in attitude toward discipline of geriatrics. Conclusions: This endeavor shows that short online course will be helpful for motivated medical students to expand their knowledge in geriatrics.
Religious minority schools are seen to take on the task of transmitting the normative image of a community, its ideology and culture. Through pedagogy and daily routine practices, schools seek to ...shape students' ideas of a religion and ways in which it is to be performed. This paper, based on ethnography of a Sikh school in Delhi, explores such schooling spaces and practices that attempt to establish and promote a homogenous religious identity among students. The school rules make it mandatory for Sikh students to adhere to the Sikh identity that it supports. However, interviews reveal that they interpret the religion differently from what is being projected to them through the school's pedagogy. The meaning-making process in the school is complex because while this is a religious institution, it caters to students from other faiths as well. The article argues that religious schools often overlook the diversity of beliefs among students and educational ethnographies can be helpful to explore such institutionalised practices and students' agency in identity formation.
This article examines the effect of location on the development of new universities. The study was conducted in seven new higher education institutions (HEIs) established in India during 1996–2008. I ...collected the data by conducting semi-structured interviews with 73 faculty members in the HEIs and from official documents, media reports and opinion pieces about the HEIs. Using the conceptual framework of path dependency, I investigated the tensions and challenges faced by the HEIs in their initial years. I find the placement of the HEIs in their respective locations to be a contingent event that can make the development of HEIs path dependent. I find that the initial conditions and decisions of the HEIs were influenced by the location and led to reactive sequential events in their initial years with effects that were hard to shake off, making their development path dependent. I show that having to develop their infrastructure and constrained by resources, the HEIs started their academic programmes first, followed by their research activities, and outreach and regional engagement.
This paper engages with youth and the everyday culture of public higher education in selected urban sites of the Banaras Hindu University (BHU). As a public university, the BHU inspires massive youth ...mobility from rural areas and small towns in North India, specially of youth from socially disadvantaged castes and women. I find that these youth are not lacking in a capacity to aspire. Rather, their desires are formed in complex social conditions, and involve overlapping temporal flows. Their migration for education is about escaping the routine and habits of a rural past. It is simultaneously a dream for a future with secure government jobs and urban living. Further, their aspirations are not merely utilitarian - they include a normative idea of the university, with good-quality education and an egalitarian culture, replete with freedoms. However, the everyday culture of the public university is replete with boundaries. Persisting patriarchal constraints, bureaucratic academic cultures, and rampant casteism place boundaries on youth aspirations. Finally, I argue that the relational resources among youth on campus form a collective resource that provides them with a navigational capacity to overcome bounded aspirations.
To encompass the multitude of activities currently attached to graphic design, scholars, practitioners, and other stakeholders have proposed a range of names in recent times. Owing to the expansion ...of the role and multiple proposed and prevalent nomenclatures in education and industry, some confusion and identity crisis exists. This study investigates and traces the journey of graphic design, how its roles and functions have evolved with time, and the challenge of assigning a universally acceptable nomenclature encompassing all that graphic design stands for now. Data has been collected from both primary and secondary sources to get a sense of the situation. The secondary sources helped understand the breadth of the problem, views of scholars, practitioners, and the education world. Primary sources helped establish the inconsistencies of nomenclature in graphic design education, mirroring the situation of graphic design’s expanded functions in the profession. Primary information has been collected from the design institutes’ official websites in India, government documents, and reports to understand prevalent names of similar study programmes. The paper calls for shared and renewed efforts by design associations, scholars, practitioners, and educationists to access the profession’s past, present, and future trajectory towards strengthening and reinforcing its identity
India is home to more than 800 million Hindus and has a massive higher education system that is overseen by the University Grants Commission (ugc). Despite this, there are hardly any departments of ...religion or Hinduism in India, but the ugc, even though it has a secular mission, funds universities with explicit religious affiliations. This article traces the reasons for these paradoxes and discusses the apparent lacuna of religious studies departments by looking at the genealogy of the study of religion in India. It initially looks at the contested terrain of nineteenth-century educational institutions. The work of British missionaries, Orientalists, and government officials form the imperial context to understand Charles Wood's momentous Despatch (1854), which, on the one hand, argues for secular institutions but, on the other, tries to accommodate the work of the Orientalists and the missionaries. Wood recommends a system in which government subsidies, secular education, and universities with overt religious profiles become interlocked, but the formal study of religion is bypassed. Finally, I reconsider what the "dearth" of religious studies and the "absence" of Hinduism departments reveal about the construction of religion in India itself. The lack of conceptual correspondence between "religion" and "Hinduism" as taught in Western academic contexts does not preclude the formal study of religion in India. Instead, the study of religion is conducted within particularized frameworks germane to the Indic context, using a network of unique institutes. Reflection on these distinctively Indian epistemological frameworks push new ways of thinking about religious education and the construction of religion as an object of study in South Asia.
Engineering education in India has been facing considerable challenges in regard to good teaching and knowledge deployment. Therefore demands new teaching methods and learning approaches thus must be ...developed in the field. The present review explores the concept of good teaching practices affecting performance of students in higher education with special reference to engineering education in India. With the advent of new technologies and tools, it is also vital to study the effectiveness of teaching methodologies; therefore, the review is intended to demarcate the factors which can be used to evaluate the good teaching among students. This study also explains the research done on engineering education in India in the past and recognizes the major factors influencing the same.
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