Search Results for
"Article"

This paper reports on a narrative review of the criticality of problem-solving and troubleshooting skills for undergraduate Electronics Engineering students and its significance for industry readiness. The review was undertaken to understand the problems and troubleshooting skills learned and possessed by the Electronics Engineering training programme for students in higher education. It is argued that the curriculum designed for undergraduate engineering students does not include troubleshooting. The essential criticality of troubleshooting in electronics engineering education is well described in this review. The narrative review of the literature covered peer-reviewed papers that focus on problem-solving and troubleshooting and were published in English between 2000 and 2022. Findings from the articles meeting relevant criteria were synthesised into themes. The review found that although problem-solving is seen broadly as a critical skill required for engineers in engineering education, most engineering programmes emphasise design problem-solving, such as in designing products, engineering processes, systems, and methods. Other essential problems involving technical troubleshooting and problem-solving skills are critical for their future career development but are inadvertently neglected in the curriculum. The study considered some implications for curriculum reform in Electronics Engineering programmes. The study further offers insights into the complexities and gaps in the Electronics Engineering curriculum and novice undergraduates’ troubleshooting skills. © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Background: Competency-based education (CBE) is adopted to reform health professionals’ education. The goal is to produce graduates who are not only competent in their fields but also equipped with the necessary social accountability skills for safe practice. Aim: The study aimed to explore nursing education stakeholders’ perspectives on competency-based primary healthcare (PHC)-oriented nursing education programmes in the South African context. Setting: The setting for this study was a higher education institution in South Africa. Methods: A descriptive qualitative method was used in this study. After taking ethical clearance from the university ethics committee, data were purposively collected and theoretically sampled from 40 participants through focus group discussion, individual interviews and document analysis. Results: The data findings reported categories that emerged from this study, which include the attributes of a competency-based PHC-oriented programme and the outcomes of a competency-based PHC-oriented programme. Conclusion: In the context of this study, the concept of CBE was portrayed as a programme with strong social accountability that aims at addressing priority health needs surrounding communities and ensuring that the health needs of the community are met while providing health delivery service to communities in their natural environment. Contribution: These findings add to the growing evidence base around CBE as an approach to strengthen PHC-oriented health services in low-and middle-income countries, a key aspect of which is providing service within communities. This enables the accessibility of quality healthcare closer to where people live and work to achieve Sustainable Development Goal number three. © 2024. The Authors.

This article aimed to strengthen training programmes in Zhejiang by aligning them with educational policies to respond to ongoing reforms drawing on Latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) topic modelling and content analysis. The topic modelling approach uncovers dominant training themes and trends by analysing extensive unstructured training topics from an online training platform in Zhejiang, thus bridging the gap between theoretical research and practical application. This approach offers data-driven insights, supporting dynamic tracking of educational trends in real-time for timely policy and curriculum adjustments. Ultimately, the article argues that real-time data and stakeholder feedback should be integrated to ensure educational policies align closely with actual teachers’ needs. However, due to data limitations, the article acknowledges a challenge in fully utilizing topic modelling and suggests combining it with qualitative analysis to gain a deeper understanding of educational practices. The Incorporation of a topic modelling approach into teacher education research could contribute significantly to training efficiency and policy relevance, fostering an adaptive educational policy environment. © 2024 National Institute of Education, Singapore.

This article examines the adoption and recontextualisation of the German dual apprenticeship model into the Mexican dual apprenticeship model (MMFD in Spanish) through a cultural political economy approach to policy analysis. We analysed the interests, discourse drivers, and resources of involved and absent actors as explanatory variables for MMFD’s institutional configuration. Key actors included federal education agencies, business chambers, and the German International Cooperation Agency, while the Ministry of Labour, the Ministry of the Economy, and trade unions were notably absent. Consequently, MMFD reflects the interests of the governing clique and organised business—both national and international—while excluding the organised working class. The MMFD also framed youth unemployment as a consequence of skills mismatch, overlooking Mexico’s slow-growth economy under neoliberalism since the 1980s. Our qualitative case study reconstructed the policy transfer process using official documents, statistics, and 40 semi-structured interviews analysed within the cultural political economy framework. Triangulating data sources allowed us to reconfirm our findings. Mexico’s adoption of MMFD is a reference for developing countries to extract lessons for policy transfer and adoption. © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Educational technology is dynamic, with new developments and innovations continuously shaping research directions and priorities. The Educational Technology Quarterly (ETQ) offers valuable insights into evolving trends within this domain through its broad publication of studies across various educational contexts and technologies. This paper provides a bibliometric analysis of research articles published in ETQ from 2021-2023 to identify key themes and changes in focus over this period. © 2024 Copyright for this paper by its authors.

Introduction: Improving the quantity and quality of veterinary talent cultivation is an urgent issue to address in current veterinary education and is key to enhancing veterinary talent competitiveness. Starting from an industrial perspective, the introduction of scientific analytical methods for studying veterinary talent competitiveness offers a new view on veterinary education and helps to improve the quality of veterinary education and talent cultivation. Methods: This study develops a veterinary talent competitiveness evaluation index based on the characteristics of veterinary talent. It proposes a visual method to analyze the level and spatiotemporal evolution of veterinary talent competitiveness using the Entropy method and ArcGIS tools, with Western China as a case study. Data is collected from 12 regions in Western China, spanning 2015 to 2021. Results: The results show that the method not only evaluates the current state of veterinary talent competitiveness but also considers temporal and spatial evolution, achieving good evaluation effectiveness and high accuracy, thereby guiding the improvement of veterinary education and talent cultivation. Discussion: Based on the research findings, the study suggests improving the quality of veterinary education and talent cultivation through measures such as strengthening talent resource development, addressing regional imbalances, and promoting spatial integration to achieve a virtuous cycle between veterinary education and industrial development. © © 2024 Xu, Arshad, Jian, Mahmood and Dong.

The article reviews the concept of secondary language identity, which is an individual's adaptation and assimilation of a new linguistic and cultural framework distinct from their primary language identity. The focus of the paper is on identifying various components that constitute secondary language identity, including linguistic proficiency, cultural competence, social adaptability, and cognitive flexibility. The authors make an attempt to investigate the ways secondary language identity affects engineers' professional activity in particular through enhancing their communication skills, supporting intercultural exchange, and improving workplace adaptability. The established correlation between the universal competencies built during engineer's professional training and components of secondary language identity represents the novelty of the research. Finally, the article proposes pedagogical strategies for fostering secondary language identity in university-level English classes, emphasizing immersive experiences, intercultural communication practice, and the integration of authentic materials to simulate real-world language use © 2024 IEEE.

Extensive policy and practice attention aims to support young people as they seek to achieve educational and career goals yet there are widely varying trajectories toward these goals that reflect individual preferences and social inequalities. This study reports findings from qualitative interviews with 16 young adults currently enrolled in a primarily vocational pathway at a community college and who had prior involvement with child welfare, juvenile justice or mental health systems. Using a narrative approach, respondents described their career and educational pathways including their current status, antecedents, and future trajectory. Key factors that have impacted their pathway include their initial vocational interests, messages from within their social networks, and impacts of work and family life on educational goals. Study results have implications for better supporting young people with system involvement to identify and achieve their educational and career goals. © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2024.

This article asserts that serious games (SGs) are effective tools for teaching citation and referencing styles in higher education. The proposed SG aims to enhance students' understanding and application of these styles through an engaging, game-based approach. We use an agile design cycle combined with educational design and design science research methodologies. The SG's key elements include objectives, rules, mechanics, learning outcomes, and assessment strategies, all integrated into higher education curricula. © 2024 Dechema e.V.. All rights reserved.

Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)-integrated project-based learning (PBL) is essential in contemporary education as it improves students’ advanced cognitive capacities, critical thinking aptitude, scientific literacy, and ecological awareness. This study aims to identify and highlight some research publications that examine STEM-integrated PBL to improve students’ biology practical skills in higher education. The author guided the systematic review process with the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses diagram, ensuring a structured approach to article selection. The author selected 24 potential articles for the literature review based on certain inclusion criteria. The chosen articles emphasize the importance of evaluating STEM-integrated PBL to improve biology practicum skills among students in higher education, highlighting the need for quantitative methods such as descriptive surveys and experiments in research. The research article’s findings show a positive trend toward improving educational practices in biology through the integration of STEM in PBL, with a growing body of literature focusing on this area. The findings of this study offer valuable insights for educators to improve students’ biology practical skills in higher education. © 2024 the author(s), published by De Gruyter.