This study was explorative in nature and aimed at in-depth understanding of the personal resources students use to reach self-defined success. To gain an in-depth understanding of personal resources that benefit students’ performance in the demanding context of honors education, we used qualitative methods.Becoming successful in higher education demands a lot from students. Considering the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model, a model that is also applicable in education because of the similarities between work and study, it is expected that personal resources help students succeed in demanding situations. In this study, we explored which personal resources benefit students’ performance in the demanding context of honors education. Using a preparatory digital questionnaire and semi-structured interviews, we asked 13 honors students of three Dutch Universities of Applied Sciences which personal resources had helped them to achieve success. The results suggest that the personal resources used varied among honors students. The most frequently mentioned resources could be grouped around five themes: self-directiveness, inquiry-mindedness, perseverance, social involvement, and motivation. Especially resources in the themes self-directiveness, inquiry-mindedness and perseverance were perceived as important facilitators for educational success, like passing exams. The outcomes of this study may inform interventions to help students develop personal resources needed to handle high educational demands. Further research is needed to identify the most effective interventions.
MULTIFILE
Introduction: The social distancing restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic have changed students’ learning environment and limited their social interactions. Therefore, the objective of this study was to investigate the influence of the social distancing restrictions on students’ social networks, wellbeing, and academic performance. Methods: We performed a questionnaire study in which 102 students participated before and 167 students during the pandemic. They completed an online questionnaire about how they formed their five peer social networks (study-related support, collaboration, friendship, share information, and learn-from) out-of-class. We performed social network analysis to compare the sizes, structures, and compositions of students’ five social networks before and during the pandemic, between first- and second-year students, and between international and domestic students. Additionally, we performed Kruskal–Wallis H test to compare students’ academic performance before and during the pandemic. We performed thematic analysis to answers for two open-end questions in the online questionnaire to explore what difficulties students encountered during the COVID-19 pandemic and what support they needed. Results: The results showed that the size of students’ social networks during the pandemic was significantly smaller than before the pandemic. Besides, the formation of social networks differed between first- and second-year students, and between domestic and international students. However, academic performance did not decline during the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, we identified three key areas in which students experienced difficulties and needed support by thematic analysis: social connections and interactions, learning and studying, and physical and mental wellbeing. Conclusion: When institutions implement learning with social distancing, such as online learning, they need to consider changes in students’ social networks and provide appropriate support.
LINK
To improve retention rate of factual knowledge for health students we set out to design a game which challenges students to continue testing themselves during their studies. Since we intend for them to play this game for at least two years, we had two major challenges to overcome. Firstly, how can students feel motivated to continue playing for two years on end, and secondly, how can enough content be generated for a two-year game play. The first challenge was solved by tapping into a core motivation of health students: many intend to start their own practice and for that, they want to be involved with other practitioners. We, therefore, proposed a sim-type game in which students cannot just practice on virtual patients but also on practitioners logged in as a patient. The second challenge was tackled by building a flexible framework for case collection, and including the production of those cases in the curricula of the involved programmes.
