Search Results for
"Students"

Previous research on the education-to-employment transition for students with disabilities has suggested that participation in school-to-work programs is positively associated with post-high school success. This article utilizes data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (NLSY97) to extend these findings in several ways. First, we assess the efficacy of specific types of school-based and work-based initiatives, including job shadowing, mentoring, cooperative education, school-sponsored enterprise, technical preparation, internships, and career major. Next, we extend the usual focus on the employment outcomes of work status and financial compensation to consider job-specific information on the receipt of fringe benefits. Overall, results from longitudinal multivariate analyses suggest that transition initiatives are effective in facilitating vocational success for this population; however, different aspects of school-to-work programs are beneficial for different aspects of employment. School-based programs are positively associated with stable employment and full-time work while work-based programs most consistently increase the likelihood that youth with disabilities will be employed in jobs that provide fringe benefits. Analyses also indicate that - once individuals with disabilities are stably employed - they can be employed in "good" jobs that provide employee benefits. © 2008 IOS Press. All rights reserved.

There has been renewed emphasis on the vocational in recent policy documents concerning provision for the 14-19 age group. More open acknowledgement of the vocational/academic divide within English education has appeared alongside the creation of increased vocational opportunities for young people. Research undertaken for the Transforming Learning Cultures in Further Education project has, however, raised questions concerning the provision of vocational options for 14- to 16-year-olds that are not being fully addressed by policy-makers. This article aims to provide an answer to two linked questions: why might it be important to offer vocational options to students of this age in a further education college? And, under what conditions might students benefit most from such provision? Our research revealed that students can value highly such vocational experiences, but that the extent to which young people actually benefit from the opportunity to engage in vocational learning depends crucially upon the way in which such opportunities are experienced as different from ‘normal’ schooling. It has also revealed that the opportunities for such experiences are potentially fragile, vulnerable to the effects of change within the institution. © 2007, Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. All rights reserved.

Background: Emergency medicine is team work from the field to the hospital and therefore it is also important for physicians to understand the work of paramedics, and vice versa. Interprofessional emergency medicine education for medical and paramedic students in Helsinki was started in 2001. It consisted of a 15 European credit transfer system (ECTS) credits programme combining 22 students in 2001. In 2005, the number of students had increased to 25. The programme consisted of three parts: acute illness in childhood and adults (AI), advanced life support (ALS) and trauma life support (TLS). In this paper, we describe the concept of interprofessional education of medical students and paramedics in emergency medicine. Methods: After finishing the programmes in 2001 and in 2005, the students' opinions regarding the education were collected using a standardized questionnaire. Results: There were good ratings for the courses in AI (2001 vs. 2005, whole group; 4.3 ± 0.7 vs. 4.2 ± 0.4, P = 0.44) ALS (4.7 ± 0.5 vs. 4.4 ± 0.5, P = 0.06) and TLS (3.9 ± 0.7 vs. 4.4 ± 0.5, P = 0.01) in both years. Most of the medical students considered that this kind of co-education should be arranged for all medical students (2001 vs. 2005; 4.8 ± 0.6 vs. 4.4 ± 0.5, P = 0.02) and should be obligatory (3.5 ± 1.5 vs. 3.1 ± 1.3, P = 0.35). Conclusions: Co-education was well received and determined by the students as an effective way of improving their knowledge of emergency medicine and medical skills. The programme was rated as very useful and it should be included in the educational curriculum of both student groups. © 2007 Acta Anaesthesiol Scand.

Purpose – This paper aims to describe an instructional study of three cases of work-based education students (in co-operative education in Canada), described by their teachers as ranging from high achieving to low achieving. Design/methodology/approach – The three students are given metacognitive instruction to enhance their workplace learning. The instruction is based on findings from a population of recent case studies of learning in the workplace and is shared with the students, with their teachers, and with their workplace supervisors. Interviews and observations are used to describe the variable success of metacognitive instruction in the three workplace settings. Findings – The paper finds that, while the teachers do not implement the materials fully, both the employers and the students find the metacognitive questions that make up the instructional materials to be useful and have suggestions for how the instructional materials should be used in workplaces. The instructional materials are appended. Originality/value – The paper provides useful information on enhancing their workplace learning among work-based education students. © 2007, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

This paper examines a high school apprenticeship program with a focus on the opportunities for 'expansive' learning within three different contexts: schools, the training centre and worksites. The authors assume that while young people differ in the degree to which they engage in learning within different sites, the institutional arrangements and features of different learning environments significantly influence their experiences and the quality of their apprenticeships. The authors' analysis of interviews with students and instructors involved in a carpentry program suggests that these sites exhibit several features associated with expansive approaches to workforce development. However, restrictions on learning occurred in schools partly because of the academic/vocational divide in curriculum. In the learning centre, the failure to address tensions rooted in power relations in the workplace limited students' learning. Similarly, students were confronted with the need to make trade-offs in the workplace that restricted their learning. The authors argue that taking steps to address these issues would enhance workplace practices and learning environments for apprentices. © 2007 Taylor & Francis.

Objective: Part 2 of this two-part study identifies current recruitment strategies and existing incentives used by underserviced communities to recruit health science students during the clinical placement stage. Discussion surrounding current gaps in recruitment strategies and potential funding sources are explored. Design: Mixed-method two-part study using a self-administered questionnaire. Settings: Six community hospitals and one private practice. Participants: Community resource contact from seven underserviced communities in Southeastern Ontario. Main outcome measures: Level of community agreement that current recruitment strategies include travel stipends, rent-free accommodation and interprofessional education opportunities. Results: A 100% response rate established that one sample community provides travel stipends, three provide rent-free accommodation, and four offer interprofessional education opportunities. These incentives were frequently offered exclusively to medical students. Conclusions: When considering the results from part 1 of the study, there is a substantial gap between financial incentives students deem important in the creation of an appealing clinical placement opportunity and the provisions offered to them by the sample communities. The findings of this study support the need for a recruitment enhancement program in Southeastern Ontario. © 2007 The Authors; Journal Compilation © 2007 National Rural Health Alliance Inc.

Objective: This two-part study examines the present gap between financial and educational incentives required and the recruitment strategies used to draw health science students to underserviced areas in Southeastern Ontario. Part 1 explores the impact of offering travel stipends, rent-free accommodation and interprofessional educational opportunities to health science students on their willingness to participate in clinical placements in underserviced areas. Design: Mixed-method two-part study using a self-administered questionnaire. Setting: Canadian university campus. Participants: Four hundred and sixty-eight senior level medical, nursing, occupational therapy, physical therapy and X-ray technology students from a Canadian university and affiliated professional school. Main outcome measures: The influence of currently established incentives on student willingness to complete a clinical placement in designated underserviced communities in Southeastern Ontario. Results: Based on a 75% response rate, the results demonstrate that, in general, students agree that they are more willing to complete a clinical placement in an underserviced community if provided travel stipends (75%), rent-free housing (92%) and interprofessional educational opportunities (65%). students also identified 15 additional factors influencing willingness. Conclusions: students are more willing to complete clinical placements in underserviced communities if provided incentives. The findings of this study support an interprofessional clinical education and recruitment enhancement program in Southeastern Ontario. © 2007 The Authors; Journal Compilation © 2007 National Rural Health Alliance Inc.

James Avis develops an important argument in this wide-ranging book, in which questions of social justice play a central role. He explores the socio-economic and policy context of education in advanced capitalist societies, and indicates the manner in which the rhetoric of policy-makers distorts the way in which skill is marshalled in the economy. The result is that oppressive and exploitative features of paid labour are underplayed in this rhetoric. He examines the lived experiences of teachers and students in post-compulsory education and explores their contradictory positions. If questions of social justice are to be addressed, an economically driven model of education should be rejected in favour of one that is politically engaged and utilises an expansive model of practice, extending into the wider society. © James Avis 2007.

ABET, ASEE, and the wider engineering community have long acknowledged the potential benefits of interdisciplinary education, including the opportunity to develop non-technical skills such as communication and teamwork while cultivating a broader awareness of the ethical, societal, historical, and environmental impacts of engineering work. Instructors have encountered many challenges in planning and implementing integrated courses, such as the difficulty of coordinating the teaching methods, content, and learning objectives of different academic disciplines in a finite and already overcrowded curriculum. This paper presents the goals, design approach, implementation, and selected outcomes of one integrated project-based course (using Paul Revere and other case studies to integrate materials science with the history of technology) and uses it to discuss the advantages of disciplinary integration, particularly with respect to improved student self-direction and contextual understanding. Assessments administered during and after class suggest that this integrated course successfully engendered high student motivation along with an increase in student aptitudes over the course of the semester without a corresponding loss of discipline-specific knowledge. The implementation of this integrated course and the evaluation of its outcomes are works in progress, and future assessments are being designed to shed additional light upon these issues. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2007.

This paper reports on a study which explored the social representations of structured work experience (SWE) placements in university-based tourism education held by students, academic work placement coordinators, and industry professionals, and portrayed in public presentations of university tourism curricula. Social representations can be defined as everyday or lay theories about social phenomena. The paper explores the nature of the every day theories held by these different groups of actors. In particular, the analysis focused on perceptions of why structured work experiences are a necessary component of tourism education and the perceived benefits that such educational activities can provide. The analysis is based on a series of semi-structured interviews with academic coordinators, a semi-structured survey of industry professionals or placement hosts, a survey of students in one Australian tourism management programme and a content analysis of the public information about structured work experiences available on the websites of 25 universities from North America, the United Kingdom and Australia. Two representations were identified-one based on emphasizing skill building and one on reducing risk for employers and students. The data shows that the skill building representation exists only partially amongst academics and not at all amongst the other actors and this lack of specificity, and the fact that it is only held by academics, contributes to the range of problems that have been associated with SWEs. The second representation about risk is the one that closely connects students and employers and offers the best opportunities for reducing the operational problems of SWEs. © 2007 Tourism Recreation Research.