Alessio Surian

The Students’ Survey of Education for Sustainable Development Competencies: A Comparison Among Faculties

Abstract The paper reports research employing a quantitative approach to investigating the competences of university students about educating for sustainable development (ESD). Participants were 467 bachelor students of the following five areas: social sciences, educational sciences, applied sciences, engineering and health sciences. The Student Survey of Education for Sustainable Development Competencies was employed. Internal consistency and factor structure of this questionnaire were investigated by assessing Cronbach’s alphas and by performing exploratory factor analysis. Data were subjected to ANOVA for comparing the students of the five faculties. The relevance of factors and the differences between students of different areas were discussed considering also how to infuse ESD principles in university curricula. The aim is reorienting university study programmes in various faculties to prepare students about sustainable development issues.

Supporting Higher Education—Hospital Transition through Blended Learning

Blended learning is a pedagogical approach which is designed to enhance complementarity between face-to-face and online learning (Dziuban et al., 2004). According to Qian et al.’s (Qian et al., 2016, p. 8) systematic review and meta-analysis “Blended learning appears to have a consistent positive effect in comparison with no intervention and appears to be more effective than or at least as effective as nonblended instruction for knowledge acquisition in health professions.” In line with Hew and Cheung (2014) and Kich (2016), we are not particularly concerned with the mere ratio of delivery modes. What we consider crucial in blended learning is the effectiveness of the pedagogic design in taking advantage of both environments to improve the student–student as well student–teacher interaction and collaboration. Such interaction is crucial in education that focuses on learning outcomes and specifically in competence-based medical education (CBME) which promotes the “integration of knowledge, skills, and behaviors in practice” (Snell and Frank, 2010, Bourgeois et al., 2015). According to the CBME approach, “competence” cannot be reduced to a list of learning objectives or reductionist performance as it implies a broad objective (Snell and Frank, 2010; Parent et al., 2013). The paper describes two research and educational tools that can be instrumental within a blended learning approach in tracking, discussing, and reflecting on the professional development of students in the context of Italian hospitals. The two tools are complementary to each other in offering data that take into account the international frameworks and debate on the identification and description of the competences that health professionals are required to meet. The purpose of this paper is to present two exploratory studies that have a potential for identifying research-based blended learning tools for CBME. The studies focus on the development of a group of medical students’ professional image (in Genova and Rome) during their hospital internship. The paper addresses three related questions:

Developing Cross-Cultural Awareness in Higher Education through the Use of Video-Logs Focusing on Critical Incidents

The attention for cross-cultural and intercultural awareness is gaining ground within education theory, as well as in educational policies while it remains little explored in practice (Baker, 2015). Higher Education institutions are promoting a variety of internationalization initiatives, including attracting foreign teachers and students, sending abroad their students for long periods, as well as offering face-to-face, online and blended teaching in a variety of languages – although English dominates this side of the internationalization process.

Learning with Passion and Compassion

Likewise, as scholars focusing from a sociocultural perspective on learning and educational relations in order to take into account passions and compassions in what we experience and reflect upon we are adopting an emerging orientation towards multidisciplinary research work in the field of learning interactions (Grossen, 2009).