Personal factors influencing female students' condom use at a higher education institution

BACKGROUND

 South African female students' consistent condom use is low, possibly due to personal factors, such as knowledge about sexual reproductive health, attitudes towards safe sex, risk perceptions and condom use, self-efficacy.

AIM

 This study aimed to investigate the personal factors that influence condom utilisation among female students.

SETTING

 This study was conducted at a higher education institution in the Northern Cape province in South Africa.

METHODS

 A quantitative, descriptive survey design was used. Three hundred and eighty five participants were selected using convenience sampling. The research instrument was a self-administered questionnaire, and the data were analysed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences, version 28.

RESULTS

 Almost two-thirds (250, 64.9%) of participants used condoms to prevent pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections (STIs), and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Although attitudes towards safe sex were generally positive, low risk perceptions were reported. Consistent use of condoms was found in 32.2% (124) of participants, while 45.3% (174) participants used condoms inconsistently or never. A significant finding was that consistent use increased the likelihood of negotiating for a condom with partners by 9.14 times and confidence in putting one on for a partner by 8.05 times.

CONCLUSION

 The findings depict average levels of the use of condoms among female students. Prevention efforts should concentrate on educating female students to strengthen condom use and self-efficacy.Contribution: This study, supporting existing literature, suggests that preventative efforts should focus on educating young women about condom use, self-efficacy and encouraging STI conversations with sexual partners.

Reflective Thinking Skills of Academic Administrators in Higher Education

The aim of this study is to determine the reflective thinking skills and reflective implementations of academic administrators in higher education and to reveal the importance of reflective thinking for higher education. The research was carried out in a holistic single case design as a case study which is known as one of the qualitative research methods. The study group of the research consists of 12 faculty members who carry out administrative duties (dean and assistant dean) in ten different faculties of a public university. The data collected through a semi-structured individual interview form were analyzed by content analysis technique. According to the results obtained from the research, it has been determined that academic administrators acquire their administerial skills mostly based on their experiences, their own competences, and their tendencies to evaluate their actions individually are high, and they also consider internal and external evaluations. Reflective thinking areas related to faculty management and individual development of academic administrators were also determined, and it was concluded that they questioned faculty management mostly in terms of education and student services, and their individual development in terms of problem solving and communication skills. In addition, in the study, the characteristics of reflective academic administrators and the contributions of reflective thinking were determined based on the views of academic administrators. Finally, metaphors describing the reflective-thinking academic administrator were included, and it was found that academic administrators have a difficult job based on their management duties, they should approach everyone equally and be in the role of administrators, and that the administerial task is temporary.

Work-Life Conflict Among Higher Education Institution Workers' During COVID-19: A Demands-Resources Approach

Higher Education Institutions' (HEI) workers were highly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, which magnified gender differences in terms of management of work and personal life. Most studies published so far have primarily focused on a group of HEI workers' (i.e., teachers and researchers), but not on staff members, despite their crucial role for HEI functioning. Following the Job Demands-Resources theory, we aimed to: (i) characterize work-life conflict (WLC) among men and women workers from an HEI (staff and teachers/researchers) during the COVID-19 pandemic; and (ii) explore the major predictors of WLC for both staff and teachers/researchers. This study includes a sample of 262 workers from one Portuguese HEI (n = 128 staff members; n = 134 teachers/researchers) who answered an online survey. An Independent Samples T-Test showed that the reported current WLC was significantly higher for teachers/researchers compared to staff. Moreover, women teachers/researchers showed higher WLC than men. Additionally, using a Repeated Measures ANOVA, we found that the increase in the reported levels of WLC (before the pandemic and currently) was significantly more prominent among teachers/researchers than in the staff group. Regarding the predictors of WLC for both groups separately, a Multiple Hierarchical Linear Regression showed that role overload, conceptualized as a demand, was a predictor for both staff and teachers/researchers. As for potential resources, work dedication negatively predicted WLC for staff, whereas family-friendly organization perceptions predicted less WLC for teachers/researchers. These results highlight the importance of understanding HEIs holistically, by considering workers' individual characteristics such as gender, but also distinct careers inside the institutions. As most European HEIs are currently making active efforts to promote gender-equal academic workplaces, these findings may help them design tailored and effective measures to address employees' work-life balance issues, not only considering gender, but also the different types of demands associated with each group of workers within HEIs.

The Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Teleworking and Education in a Romanian Higher Education Institution: An Internal Stakeholders Perspective

The COVID-19 pandemic has created the conditions for the expansion of teleworking (TW) in numerous sectors and organizations, and higher education institutions (HEIs) have had to adapt to this context. This paper aims to identify and analyze five factors (technology, individual involvement and skills, physical inactivity, psychological well-being, and household activities) that influence the effort and results in TW and education (E) in HEIs from the perspective of their key internal stakeholders. The data were gathered by a mix of qualitative and quantitative research methods, such as interviews and surveys. They were analyzed and interpreted through factorial analysis that uses the presentation of the main components as an extraction method, with the Varimax rotation method adopting Kaiser normalization, and processed with SPSS statistical software. This study shows that the effort and results of the key internal stakeholders of HEIs are influenced by the five factors. In this respect, students' results are negatively influenced by technology and physical inactivity factors. Moreover, the efforts of auxiliary and non-teaching staff are highly positively influenced by the psychological well-being factor and their results are positively influenced by the individual involvement and skills factor and negatively influenced by the household activities factor.

Cultivation of Entrepreneurial Talents Through Virtual Entrepreneurship Practice in Higher Education Institutions

The purpose is to study the influence of virtual entrepreneurship practice on entrepreneurial talent cultivation and innovation and entrepreneurship education in higher education institutions. First, a questionnaire is designed from three aspects: entrepreneurial awareness, entrepreneurial psychological quality, and entrepreneurial knowledge structure. Afterward, the questionnaire is issued to 200 students from a college in Shaanxi province, and SPSS 25 is chosen to analyze and characterize the virtual entrepreneurship practice education and the innovation and entrepreneurship education in higher education institutions. The results show that among all the subjects, nearly 20% of them do not understand entrepreneurship, nearly 85% of them concern about the risk of entrepreneurship, and nearly 70% of them take a negative attitude toward entrepreneurial failure. Meanwhile, the subjects have not formed an independent view on entrepreneurship, the subjects’ basic entrepreneurial quality is poor, their entrepreneurship awareness is weak, and their entrepreneurial psychological quality is poor. The subjects lack entrepreneurial quality rather than entrepreneurial knowledge. Finally, some suggestions are put forward on education on virtual entrepreneurship practice in higher education institutions from four aspects: improving the external environment of entrepreneurship, improving the entrepreneurship curriculum in higher education institutions, improving the teaching staff, and developing the practice bases for entrepreneurship education. The results provide some ideas about promoting the comprehensive reform of talent training mode in higher education institutions.

Digital Transformation in Higher Education Institutions: A Systematic Literature Review

Higher education institutions (HEIs) have been permeated by the technological advancement that the Industrial Revolution 4.0 brings with it, and forces institutions to deal with a digital transformation in all dimensions. Applying the approaches of digital transformation to the HEI domain is an emerging field that has aroused interest during the recent past, as they allow us to describe the complex relationships between actors in a technologically supported education domain. The objective of this paper is to summarize the distinctive characteristics of the digital transformation (DT) implementation process that have taken place in HEIs. The Kitchenham protocol was conducted by authors to answer the research questions and selection criteria to retrieve the eligible papers. Nineteen papers (1980–2019) were identified in the literature as relevant and consequently analyzed in detail. The main findings show that it is indeed an emerging field, none of the found DT in HEI proposals have been developed in a holistic dimension. This situation calls for further research efforts on how HEIs can understand DT and face the current requirements that the fourth industrial revolution forced.

Academic performance and use of psychoactive drugs among healthcare students at a university in southern Brazil: cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND

People have been using psychoactive substances for a long time. Over the last few years, this practice has spread among university students, who use these substances to improve their academic performance, relieve stress and increase concentration and memory.

OBJECTIVES

To estimate the use of psychoactive drugs among healthcare students at a higher education institution in the city of Passo Fundo (RS), Brazil, and to ascertain the associated demographic and lifestyle factors.

DESIGN AND SETTING

Cross-sectional study in a higher education institution.

METHODS

We included 287 undergraduate medicine and dentistry students in this study. They answered a self-administered questionnaire regarding sociodemographic, lifestyle and health variables. The statistical analysis used univariate and bivariate analyses with Pearson's chi-square test (P-value < 0.05). -Multivariate analyses were used to estimate odds ratios (OR) and their respective 95% confidence intervals. The SPSS software, version 20.0, was used.

RESULTS

The prevalence of use of psychoactive substances among the students was 24.7%. Among these students, high frequencies of psychoactive drugs had been prescribed by physicians (95.8%) and for the purpose of relaxation or stress relief (73.2%). Women, medical students (compared with dental students) and participants with lower academic performance were more likely to use psychoactive drugs. After the multivariate adjustment, the "course" and "academic performance" remained associated with use of psychoactive drugs.

CONCLUSION

There was high prevalence of psychoactive drug use among the students at the higher education institution investigated. Some variables (female sex, medical students and low academic performance) were associated with the outcome.

Mitigating a Nursing School's Impact on Climate Change: A Quality Improvement Project

BACKGROUND

Mitigation is one approach to addressing climate change, which focuses on reducing carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions. Nurses play a critical role in mitigation to prevent the health impacts of climate change. Recommendations to mitigate climate change in higher education institutions reflect four themes: policy, people, process, and practice. This quality improvement project aimed to mitigate a metropolitan nursing school's impacts on climate change.

METHODS

A Sustainability Champion Workgroup was formed to address gaps identified in the organizational needs assessment. A No Waste November (NWN) campaign and a sustainability dashboard were created to engage participants and increase awareness about climate change and environmentally sustainable behaviors. A pre- and post-NWN survey, adapted from the Nurses' Environmental Awareness Tool, and waste disposal measurements over 6 weeks were used to assess the impact of these interventions.

RESULTS

The post-NWN survey showed the greatest increases in mean scores for the following environmentally sustainable behaviors: biking, walking, carpooling, or taking public transportation to work; leading or participating in recycling initiatives; serving on committees that purchase sustainable supplies; and composting. Waste disposal measurements revealed a higher proportion of recycling to landfill waste during 5 out of the 6 weeks of measurement.

CONCLUSION

Nurses and higher education institutions play an important role in mitigating the human impacts on climate change through environmental sustainability initiatives. Barriers to adopting environmentally sustainable behaviors and incentives to support these behaviors also need to be examined and addressed in future projects.

Sexual harassment and victimization of students: a case study of a higher education institution in South Africa

Introduction

Sexual harassment has been identified as a major public health problem that is hidden in most institutions/organizations.

Objective

This study assessed sexual harassment and victimization of students in a higher institution in South Africa.

Methods

A quantitative, cross-sectional descriptive design was used in this study. The target population was registered students of the higher education institution and the sample size was 342. Questionnaire was used for data collection and data were analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) Version 23.0 program. The basic principles of ethics were duly observed and the ethical clearance certificate was obtained prior to data collection.

Results

The findings revealed that 27 (17.3%) of the male and 47 (25.5%) of the female respondents (P = 0.047) had personally experienced unwanted touching. Two (1.3%) male and 5 (2.7%) female students admitted that they have been raped. Seventeen (10.8%) of the males and 19 (10.2%) of the females had been coerced to comply with a sexual relationship on campus.

Conclusion

This study shows that both male and female students on campus are experiencing different forms of sexual harassment.

Experiences of facilitators regarding the extended curriculum programme offered at a higher education institution in the province of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa

BACKGROUND

 Much like the rest of the world, student access and success are primary concerns of the South African higher education institutions, especially in the face of data that suggest that up to 50% of students do not successfully complete their course of study. Despite compulsory and free basic education for all South Africans, and increased government funding for education, there has been little impact on learner performance and the majority of primary schools remain poor. To improve access and success and in keeping with international practice, the Department of Nursing at the selected university of technology in 2013 offered for the first time the extended curriculum programme (ECP). To date, the impact of the programme has never been evaluated.

OBJECTIVES

 The aim of the study was to explore the experiences of the facilitators regarding ECP in the undergraduate nursing programme.

METHOD

 Guided by this, the current article describes a qualitative exploration of the experiences of six purposively selected facilitators regarding ECP in the Department of Nursing. In-depth interviews were conducted with the ECP facilitators. Tesch's method was used to analyse the data.

RESULTS

 Four main themes emerged from the data: stigmatisation and lack of confidence, lack of self-will, additional workload of facilitators and gradual improvement of students' performance. The participants reported that although students displayed and verbalised negative attitude towards the ECP, the performance of students showed gradual improvement and thus a need to continue to offer the programme to increase access and success in higher education institutions.

CONCLUSION

 It was concluded that ECP should continue to increase access and success in higher education institutions; however, there is a need for additional resources to support ECP students.

Are We Ready to Implement Competence-Based Teaching in Pharmacy Education in Poland?

Pharmacists in Poland are responsible for the dispensing and quality control of pharmaceuticals. The education process in pharmacy is regulated and monitored at the national level. Pharmacy education at Jagiellonian University is organized in a traditional way based on input and content teaching. The aim of the study was to determinate whether the Jagiellonian University curriculum in the Pharmacy program meets the criteria of the European Competence Framework. The mapping of the intended curriculum was done by four academic teachers. The qualitative and quantitative analysis of the distribution of the European Competence Framework among a group of courses and study years was done. We observed that most of the personal competencies are offered to students in their senior years, while the patient care competencies are distributed equally during the cycle of the study, and only some of them are overrepresented at the senior years. We need a legislation change at the national level as well as organizational and mental change at the university level to move from learning outcome-based pharmacy education to competence-based.

Journal subscription expenditure of UK higher education institutions

The academic libraries of higher education institutions (HEIs) pay significant amounts of money each year for access to academic journals. The amounts paid are often not transparent especially when it comes to knowing how much is paid to specific publishers. Therefore data on journal subscription expenditure were obtained for UK HEIs using a series of Freedom of Information requests. Data were obtained for 153 HEIs' expenditure with ten publishers over a five-year period. The majority of institutions have provided figures but some are still outstanding. The data will be of interest to those who wish to understand the economics of scholarly communication and see the scale of payments flowing within the system. Further research could replicate the data collection in other jurisdictions.

Factors for success in collaboration between high- and low-income countries: Developing a physiotherapy education programme in Sudan

BACKGROUND

THIS STUDY PRESENTS AN EXAMPLE OF COLLABORATION BETWEEN TWO HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS: one in Norway, a high-income country, and one in Sudan, a low-income country, in developing an entry-level physiotherapy education programme in Sudan. The institution in Sudan had minimal theoretical and practical knowledge in physiotherapy. The study examined the factors important for the success of the bilateral collaboration.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

We analysed written documents produced in the project from 2007 to 2012 in a qualitative study by using systematic text condensation. We identified vital factors for partner institutions and participants in ensuring a physiotherapy education programme of high quality.

RESULTS

THESE FACTORS WERE WITHIN SEVEN TOPICS: project arrangements, collaboration relationship, curriculum development, administration of the bachelor programme, capacity building, academic community and infrastructure.

CONCLUSION

We identified several factors that we hope can be valuable for similar projects. Some factors are similar to those shown by other studies. These are probably general factors that are important for such collaboration.