To understand under what conditions intercultural group work (IGW) leads to more intercultural interactions, a survey was conducted among local students (n = 80) and international students (n = 153) in Dutch universities. In this study, students were more inclined to engage in intercultural interactions when they perceived that working with culturally diverse others prepared them to work and live in a diverse setting. The positive association was strengthened when students perceived that diversity, in terms of nationality within their work group, was also beneficial for accomplishing their group task. The findings demonstrate the significance of students’ perceptions of IGW, including the perceived general value for personal development and intellectual benefits related to specific tasks. This implies that institutions and teachers could be made responsible for engaging with innovative educational methods to address and incorporate student diversity into curriculum.
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Perceptions of community care and placement preferences in first-year nursing students: A multicentre, cross-sectional studyMargriet VAN IERSEL MSc1, Corine H.M. LATOUR PhD1, Rien DE VOS PhD2, Paul A. KIRSCHNER PhD3,5, Wilma J.M. SCHOLTE OP REIMER PhD1,4.1 ACHIEVE - Centre of Applied Research, Faculty of Health, Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, The Netherlands2 Centre of Evidence Based Education, Academic Medical Centre, Amsterdam, The Netherlands3 Open University of the Netherlands, Heerlen, The Netherlands4 Department of Cardiology, Academic Medical Centre, Amsterdam, The Netherlands 5 University of Oulu, Oulu, FinlandBackground: Despite increasing shortages of well-educated community nurses, far too few nursing students choose community care for their future profession; a strong societal problem that urgently needs resolution. This study provides a solid understanding of causes for the fields’ low popularity by exploring first-year baccalaureate nursing students' perceptions of community care, and their placement preferences along with their underlying assumptions. Insights from this study can be used by educators to positively influence students’ perceptions with targeted curriculum redesign strategies.Summary of work: A cross-sectional multicentre survey study was performed. First-year nursing students from six universities of applied sciences in the Netherlands (n = 1058) participated in the study from September-December 2014. The students completed the ‘Scale on Community Care Perceptions’ (SCOPE), consisting of demographic data, current placement preferences, and three subscales measuring the affective component of community care perception, perceptions of a placement, and a profession in community care. Descriptive statistics were used. Summary of results: For placement, 71.2% of the students prefer the general hospital, 23.4% another area, and only 5.4% choose community care. Students consider opportunities for advancement and enjoyable relationships with patients as most important for their placement. Community care is perceived as a ‘low-status-field’ with many elderly patients, where students expect to find little care variety and few opportunities for advancement. Discussion and conclusions: This study shows why few students show an interest for a career in community care. Students’ perceptions of the field are at odds with aspects they regard as important for their placement. They also underestimate the complexity of community care, where specific traits are required to ensure appropriate nursing care in patients’ homes. Take-home messages: The results of this study allow for three recommendations. First, students and educators should be aware of misconceptions about career opportunities in the field of community care. Second, educators should provide students with experiences that foster an optimistic and realistic career outlook on community care. Third, growing shortages in the community care sector urgently require representatives from the field and educators to collaborate to make community nursing an attractive career alternative.Keywords: Career choice; Students
This study investigates the way in which first year students use Facebook. An overview of recent studies on Facebook usage and a survey is presented. The latter is an online questionnaire on the Facebook activities of 618 students (78.6 % of all first year students) of the Media department of Hogeschool van Amsterdam. Previous studies identified four major Facebook activities: 1) information sharing receiving/providing information and generating ideas), 2) sharing for educational purposes (for learning, problem solving and sharing work), 3) social purposes (retrieving personal information about others or themselves, chatting, making appointments and generally keeping in touch) and 4) leisure (gaming and relaxing). The questionnaire’s answers were grouped accordingly and then compared, to provide a better understanding of how students use Facebook. In addition, a range of variables were measured in the survey,in order to map student characteristics such as gender, age, place of birth, living arrangements and the socio-economic status of their parents. Those variables were compared with the Facebook activities using PAWS Statistics 18.0 (formally SPSS)to determine any correlation
