Oscar Jerez

How to encourage intrinsic motivation in the clinical teaching environment?: a systematic review from the self-determination theory

Purpose: Internalization of students’ motivation towards an intrinsic form is associated with increased interest, commitment, learning, and satisfaction with education. Self-Determination theory postulates that intrinsic motivation and autonomous forms of self-regulation are the desired type of motivation; as they have been associated with deep learning, better performance and well-being. It claims three basic psychological needs have to be satisfied in order to achieve intrinsic motivation. These are the needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness. This study aims to provide a review on how these basic psychological needs are encouraged in undergraduate students so they can be transferred to the clinical teaching environment. Methods: Electronic searches were performed across four databases (Medline, Embase, PsycINFO, and ERIC), relevant journals, and retrieved bibliography of selected articles. In total, searches produced 4,869 references, from which 16 studies met the inclusion criteria. Results: Main themes were coded in three categories: The support of autonomy, competence and relatedness. The research-based evidence appears to be of reasonable quality, and indicates that teachers should work to satisfy students’ basic psychological needs to foster internalization of self-regulation. Our findings suggest that teachers should interact with students in a more ‘human centred’ teaching style, as these actions predict motivational internalization. Several themes emerged from different contexts and further investigation should expand them. Conclusion: This review identified actions that clinical teachers could implement in their daily work to support students’ self-determination. Autonomy supportive teaching in health professions educations would benefit students and may actually result in more effective health care delivery.

A Blended Learning Environment for Enhancing Meaningful Learning Using 21st Century Skills

In this work we present a study that documents how a blended learning environment could enhance students’ meaningful learning practicing 21st Century Skills. This study examines the outcomes of an experience done with 119 students of an undergraduate course on “Information Technology” for Business at a University level education. Students had to practice 21st Century Skills regarding communication, information literacy and ICT literacy supported by a blendedlearning environment. Results show a significant increase in meaningful learning by the end of the course. This study illustrates the potential that blended learning environments offer for higher education.

Practice of Skills for Reading Comprehension in Large Classrooms by Using a Mobile Collaborative Support and Microblogging

Reading comprehension is essential for students, because it is a predictor of their academic or professional success, however, it is challenging for many students, even more if they are part of large classrooms. This paper presents a work which uses Design-Based Research with the purpose of combining theories, methods and techniques of the educational sciences to design a collaborative learning activity including peer evaluation to develop the skills of reading comprehension, oral and written communication. It also presents an application for iPads supporting teacher and students performing this activity. The most relevant contributions of the proposed design are two: (1) teachers can in real time automatically configure the members of the work teams using 3 different criteria: random, individual performance hitherto achieved by the student achieved in previous stages of the same activity, or the learning styles of each student prefers; and (2) the prior calibration of an evaluation rubric in order to ensure the quality of the application of the peer evaluation method in order to grade the answers students produce to an individual reading comprehension test. In addition, other methods and techniques are incorporated, such as: monitoring students’ performance in real time; active learning based on peer instruction to support the strategy of reading comprehension implemented.

Closing the gap between business undergraduate education and the organisational environment: A Chilean case study applying experiential learning theory

ABSTRACT In response to the continuous changes in Latin American higher education and the increasing demands for better prepared professionals, the Learning Connected to the Organisational Environment method was introduced in the course of Marketing at one public University in Chile. This was aimed as an integrated approach to education, providing pedagogical and social value by connecting organisations and real challenges with the learning objectives. This paper describes its design, implementation and initial impact on students’ learning process. Results on the impact of the LCOE method show that students valued learning with this new initiative (n = 158) and showed higher performance and improved quality of their written reports, along with higher evaluations of the teaching staff compared to students in the same course learning with traditional methods (n = 158). Discussion is centred on the value of this initiative and on suggestions for transference and future research.

Findings When Converting a Summative Evaluation Instrument to a Formative One Through Collaborative Learning Activities

Although illiteracy has been in constant decline over the last decades, there are too many reports about people having problems to identify the main ideas contained in texts they read. Reading comprehension is essential for students, because it is a predictor of their academic or professional success. Researchers have developed computer supported learning activities for supporting students develop their reading comprehension skills with varying degrees of success. One of the various advantages of having students work on electronic documents is that computers can help teachers monitor students’ work. One of the problems of these systems is poor usability due to sophisticated human-computer interaction paradigms emulating activities students perform in traditional learning activities for improving reading comprehension with pen and paper. In this paper we report on a research which implements a learning activity based on answers with multiple choice similar to a questionnaire, which is easy to implement in computers and easy to interact with. Although multiple choice questionnaires are associated to summative evaluations, the implemented learning activity uses them within a collaborative learning activity in which students have to justify, first individually then collaboratively, their choice with a short text. The developed system was used and evaluated in a real learning situation; one of the most interesting findings is not only that students who have to justify their option with a text perform better than those who have not, but that the pertinence of the text to the question does not play a major role. This suggests that just asking the students to justify their answers requires them to do a thinking process which otherwise they would not do.

Evaluation criteria for competency-based syllabi: a Chilean case study applying mixed methods

Abstract In recent decades, higher education institutions worldwide have been moving from knowledge-based to competence-based curricula. One of the greatest challenges in this transition is the difficulty in changing the knowledge-oriented practices of teachers. This study evaluates the consistency between syllabus design and the requirements imposed by a competence-based learning environment. To make this comparison, the study sets four criteria (C1: explicit relationship between syllabus and graduate profile; C2: precision of the learning outcomes and assessment criteria; C3: contents that mobilise the learning outcomes; and C4: learning and assessment activities) derived from the literature and a thematic analysis of competence-based learning in higher education. Afterwards, a sample of 150 syllabi from different disciplines of five Chilean public universities were analysed, all of which stated the use of learning outcomes and competences in their learning models. Using a three-point Likert scale derived from the aforementioned criteria and their indicators, a comparison was made between the actual practices reflected in the syllabus design and the previously established criteria. Results show a gap between the declaration of a competency-based curriculum and actual syllabus outlines. Moreover, there are important differences among disciplines. Although all disciplines present high levels of accomplishment for Criteria 1 and 3, only the discipline of health sciences presents an acceptable level for Criteria 2 and 4. It is recommended that further research be undertaken towards identifying effective competency-based syllabus design.