Inés González-González

Which Are the Determinants of Online Students’ Efficiency in Higher Education?

International literature shows that the positive effect on students performance from the adoption of innovations in the technology of teaching and learning do not affect all teaching methods and learning styles equally, as it depends on university strategy and policy towards Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) adoption, students abilities, technology uses in the educational process by teachers and students, or the selection of a methodology that matches with digital uses. This paper provides empirical answers to these questions with data from online students at the Open University of Catalonia (UOC). An empirical model based on structural equations has been defined to explain complex relationships between variables. Our results show that motivation is the main variable affecting online students’ performance. It appears as a latent variable influenced by students’ perception of efficiency, a driver for indirect positive and significant effect on students’ performance from students’ ability in ICT uses.

Using Socrative App for Accounting Students in Higher Education

Abstract Accounting education in universities is always a hard subject for the students, who find it boring and little stimulating. So, even though students increasingly demand the integration of varied technologies and mobile devices into learning environment (Wash & Freeman 2013), educational systems of the public universities continue to be traditional. The role of students is totally passive, so the main responsibility of class development lies on the shoulders of professors, but this situation can change with the use of Socrative App in a learning environment, since it encourages students to play an active part in class. That is why professors have to find new ways to capture the students’ attention, facilitating their learning, and at the same time, making it fun and entertaining. In this work, a teaching innovation case to first-year students in a university is presented using Socrative App. This study aims to investigate how the university can combine ICT close to traditional methodologies of learning, in order to increase interest in the subject, awakening in them passion and vocation for the accounting area.

The Path Travelled from Thinking to Perception: A Comparative Analysis of New Service's Success Drivers Considering the Nature of the KPI

Both academics and practitioners recognize the importance of certain variables such as organizational culture, a companys size and age or the entrepreneurs profile in explaining the success of a new companys service. However, it remains unclear if there is a direct and significant relationship, especially when the entrepreneur uses different indicators for measuring the performance of a new released service. 1 objective indicators, -such as financial-, or 2 subjective indicators, -based on entrepreneurs judgements, preferences and expectations-. The analysis of a sample of 354 Spanish SMEs belonging to the service sector that have developed new services in the last two years confirms that the importance and significance of these variables vary according to the type of indicator used.

How Do ICT Uses and New Human Resources Practices Affect SMEs’ Efficiency?

In this paper we have analyzed both the main traits of efficient firms and the main sources of firms’ efficiency, through a representative sample of 2.029 small and medium size Catalan firms. Our results demonstrate the importance for entrepreneurs of realizing that firms’ efficiency shows a significant improvement when advanced ICT uses are combined with human resources practices focused on the promotion of workers autonomy, flexibility and decentralization of firm’s decision making process, and with the adoption of employees assessment systems based on human values.

Confidence-Based Learning in Investment Analysis

The aim of this study is to determine the effectiveness of using multiple choice tests in subjects related to the administration and business management. To this end we used a multiple-choice test with specific questions to verify the extent of knowledge gained and the confidence and trust in the answers. The tests were performed in a group of 200 students at the bachelor’s degree in Business Administration and Management. The analysis made have been implemented in one subject of the scope of investment analysis and measured the level of knowledge gained and the degree of trust and security in the responses at two different times of the course. The measurements have been taken into account different levels of difficulty in the questions asked and the time spent by students to complete the test. The results confirm that students are generally able to obtain more knowledge along the way and get increases in the degree of trust and confidence in the answers. It is confirmed as the difficulty level of the questions set a priori by the heads of the subjects are related to levels of security and confidence in the answers. It is estimated that the improvement in the skills learned is viewed favourably by businesses and are especially important for job placement of students.