Search results

In the past many scientists have published papers on hormesis, on molecular stress responses, and on the similia principle in homoeopathy. Very few, however, have stressed a common base of interdependence of these fields. Reviews the most important of these studies to demonstrate their evolution and their mutual importance. Furthermore, a multidisciplinary approach is chosen to demonstrate research into the beneficial effects of subharmful doses of toxicants administered in suboptimal conditions (such as in stressed or injured organisms and cells).

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the relationship among undergraduate students’ perception of faculty members’ and institutional support, undergraduate students’ appreciation of scientific skills and undergraduate students’ research endeavors.

A structural model was calculated to relate the variables. The sample included 1,882 undergraduate students from a State University located in the Southeast of Mexico. Undergraduate students came from different fields, and all of them that had taken at least 60 percent of their curricular credits.

The structural model suggests that faculty members’ and institutional support are positively related to undergraduate students’ appreciation of scientific skills and undergraduate students’ research endeavors. The findings suggest faculty members’ and institutional support are key factors to develop scientific research in undergraduate students. Therefore, the researchers argue that science programs taught in Mexican colleges and universities must endorse supportive practices among faculty members and institutions.

The cross-sectional design does not allow to set clear causal relationships among the explored variables. In addition, the sample included only one public university. Thus, further empirical research with research participants from different universities across the country is suggested. These improvements may enhance the strength of the proposed theoretical model.

Currently, there are a plethora of studies looking at students’ attitudes toward science. Those studies have also discussed the conditions and contexts that influence research practice among undergraduate students. Nonetheless, there are no studies known by the authors that include the set of variables and relationships considered in the present study.

Despite the plethora of studies looking at several conditions and contexts influencing undergraduate students’ attitudes toward science, no studies known by the authors have included the set of variables and relationships considered in the present study.

This study aims to examine live streaming experiences of business students’ at the tertiary education level, and how the use of this interactive platform satisfies their affective, cognitive, social and hedonic needs in learning. Likewise, it explored the influence of live streaming class on the learning outcome needed in achieving self-directed learning.

Drawing on the uses and gratifications theory, a conceptual framework was developed to discover the impact of interactive live streaming platform in meeting learners’ needs required for self-directed learning. A survey was conducted with a sample of 402 business undergraduate students from 5 universities. Data was analyzed with covariance-based structural equation modeling.

This study confirmed that learners’ gratifications gained from live streaming encouraged them to collaborate with the instructors in meeting the learning outcomes. The findings also supported that the interactive nature of live streaming offers the opportunity for students to learn independently. Thus, it sheds new light on how a live streaming learning environment can be further developed in promoting self-directed learning.

This study offers a novel understanding of live stream class adoption by examining learners’ needs from a uses and gratification perspective. It also contributed new insight to the existing literature on live streaming technology use in education to promote self-directed learning.

This research aims to examine the relationship between transactive memory systems and team sensemaking in the presence of critical boundary conditions, namely, task conflict and reward interdependence.

The data for Study 1 was collected from 304 team members who worked in 87 organizations in the Information, Communication and Technology sector of Pakistan. Study 2 is based on team-level data that was collected from 180 teams working in the New Product Development sector, with four to seven members in each team. The data tested the three-way interaction effect of the transactive memory systems, task conflict and reward interdependence on team sensemaking.

Results have shown that transactive memory systems have a positive relationship with team sensemaking, particularly when both task conflict and reward interdependence were perceived to be high.

To reap synergies, human resource managers should avoid disrupting team structures, assigning new members to a team or rotating team members very frequently. Moreover, if a team is experiencing high task conflict, reward interdependence may encourage conflict to remain constructive.

The current study is one of the first few attempts that examine the pivotal role of task conflict and reward interdependence as boundary conditions on transactive memory systems and team sensemaking. This research, therefore, highlights the role of transactive memory systems in enhancing team sensemaking at higher levels of task conflict and reward interdependence.

Interdisciplinary approaches to health education are becoming increasingly common. Here, the authors describe an arts-based approach designed by academics and artists to both supplement the study of mental illness and support the individual mental health of undergraduate and postgraduate university students, by raising the visibility of mental illness in an innovative way.

Through workshops, university students were guided in a sensory and physical way to discuss psychological health and vulnerability. This was followed by the creation of physical representations of mental distress through art pieces.

Students were able to design their own art pieces and discuss mental health issues in an open and creative way. Students reported that the arts-based initiative was beneficial to their practice as future professionals and provided a holistic learning experience. At the same time, artists were able to generate powerful images which facilitated further discussions within the faculty.

This project provides an innovative model for workshops which could be employed to raise the visibility of common mental health disorders among university students while providing a safe space to discuss and support wellbeing. Additionally, variations could be implemented to enhance the teaching of affective disorders within a university curriculum.

This paper presents the results of collaboration between academics and artists, who together generated an innovative way to both support students' mental health and provide an alternative way to supplement experiential learning about common mental health conditions such as anxiety and depression.

The purpose of this paper is to explore a hybrid model of the consumption of organic foods, combining the use of exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and an artificial neural network (ANN).

The study has three phases. In the first phase, the Delphi method is employed, and 15 motives for the consumption of organic food are identified; these motives are used to develop the model in the second phase. Finally, in the last phase, an ANN is used to rank the motives to determine their priority.

The EFA model explored includes four factors that have a positive effect on the level of organic food consumption. These are naturalness, trust, sanitariness and marketing. Results from the use of an ANN indicate that the main variables in organic food consumption are claims, psychological variables and doubt. From the results of the EFA model it is clear these three variables are components of the factor of trust.

Marketers can use the model developed in this paper to satisfy the needs of their customers and hence enhance their market share and profitability. This study shows that improvements in truth in the claims made for organic products, perceived security from using these products and doubts about the safety of other foods can lead marketers to their goal. Informative advertisements can inculcate trust and naturalness among consumers as main factors.

The main contribution of this study is the light it sheds on how consumers think about organic foods. It develops a model incorporating motives for consuming organic food and determining the priorities held by consumers of organic foods.

Engaging students in environmental citizenship to promote education for sustainability (EfS) as an explicit goal of academic courses is not common, notwithstanding wide consensus on its importance. Collaborative learning has rarely been investigated using action research methods in the context of environmental citizenship in higher education; the purpose of this study is to fill the gap.

Adopting Bandura's (2012) theory of self-efficacy and collective efficacy, this study explores how collaborative learning, used throughout an action research-based course, encouraged students’ efficacy to implement environmental citizenship in their communities. Data were collected through multiple sources: students’ written reflections, instructors’ reflective journals and continuous discussions, interviews with students and different documents (course syllabi, lesson plans and students' scientific posters).

The findings of this study indicate that the authors succeeded in creating an appropriate social academic setting for the students to become acquainted with each other and to share ideas, successes and challenges in an accepting atmosphere, which proved beneficial to developing their self-confidence to promote EfS in practice. Adopting collaborative learning in the context of environmental citizenship also increased students' self-efficacy and collective efficacy. Self-efficacy was strengthened in the four sources discussed by Bandura (2012): mastery experiences, social modeling, social persuasion and emotional states. Collective efficacy was developed both in the academic and practical domains.

The findings of this study suggest that collaborative learning could serve as a powerful way to promote EfS in higher education, especially in teacher education. This contribution was achieved through integrating academic and practical knowledge foundations, which are required to implement environmental citizenship successfully, supporting learners’ initial steps towards becoming change agents in the society.

The marketisation of higher education fosters the notion of students as consumers, highlighting the shifting dynamics of student–teacher relationships. This paper aims to contribute to ongoing discussions about students as consumers and their involvement in pedagogical practices. We explore students’ experiences in short-term study abroad (SA) programmes that involve collaborative learning, examining how a consumerism-oriented approach affects students’ perceptions of their pedagogical identities and student–teacher pedagogical relationships.

A qualitative exploratory study was conducted to capture students’ rich and subjective perceptions and experiences. The data were gathered through semi-structured interviews with 15 Chinese undergraduate students who participated in a short-term SA programme at a UK university. Following data translation and transcription, a thematic analysis approach facilitated our exploration.

Chinese students engage in SA programmes as a strategic investment in personal growth and transformation, with their consumer-oriented identity fostering a mutually beneficial relationship with educators and group members. This consumer mindset appears to enhance active student engagement and, to some extent, create reciprocal student–teacher interactions through power sharing and collaborative involvement.

This study presents empirical data exploring the impact of consumer identity on the dynamics of student–teacher relationships in the SA context. It provides recommendations for implementing pedagogical approaches designed to mediate the influence of consumerism on student engagement, particularly in shaping collaborative student–teacher relationships. This study offers insights for future research on the effects of consumerism in higher education within cross-cultural contexts.

The aim of this paper is to generate a streamlined, transparent and effective instrument to fairly measure the contribution made by each student to a group project within a higher education context. The primary aim is to moderate the grades of underperforming students at the end of the project. There is a secondary benefit in alerting underperforming students to raise their contribution mid-task or face a potentially reduced grade at the final stage.

The development of this multi-dimensional instrument is guided by findings from previous research. The quest is to minimise the instructor's administrative work load in applying a moderation-only instrument that is open-source and available at no cost. Based on the literature, the survey instrument seeks to apply a peer-based, equitable and transparent evaluation of each member's contribution to a group task. The survey is applied at mid-task and again at end-task in order to afford underperformers the opportunity to address contribution deficits during the final phase of the project.

The instrument, called TANDEM©, offers a transparent, streamlined, equitable, confidential and practical measure of each student's contribution to a graded group task. Students whose end-task contribution falls below the group average rating receive a proportional reduction in their personal grade. Additionally, the end-task moderation instrument captures a single-item holistic measure of relative contribution that may, in the future, serve as a surrogate for the multi-dimensional measures currently in place.

TANDEM© was developed with group sizes of four or five members in mind. There is no evidence to support its application to three-person groups. Moreover, the application was applied only amongst under-graduate students. It is yet to be applied across post-graduate groups and within online learning environments. Future research into diverse cultural settings would serve to advance understanding of how moderation is perceived across borders.

Several existing group grade moderation methods propose complex algorithms that are “black box” solutions from a student's perspective. In establishing a fair, streamlined, confidential and transparent process for peer-rated moderation, TANDEM© deploys a concise instrument with a relatively small administrative load. TANDEM © may be applied to all groups or can selectively be applied to groups that report moderate, strong or extreme levels of conflict.

Students will appreciate the opportunity to rate peer contributions to group projects. This will dissipate the negative social sentiment that may arise when fellow students benefit from the work of others. Those students seeking conflict resolution within the group will value the transparent and equitable moderation of grades as well as the positive social implications that follow.

This research forms part of an ongoing quest to present a moderation instrument that fairly identifies student contribution to a group project. Whilst the solution proposed is one of many existing alternatives, its focus is on a practical moderation-only instrument that can immediately be applied to a course or major. The benefits lie in the ease of application and minimal administrative workload. This constitutes an original contribution to the individual (course or major) coordinator who seeks to apply a moderation-only instrument without having to commit to an extensive, broad-based group optimisation programme.