Individuals with autism increasingly enroll in universities, but little is known about predictors for their success. This study developed predictive models for the academic success of autistic bachelor students (N=101) in comparison to students with other health conditions (N=2465) and students with no health conditions (N=25,077). We applied propensity score weighting to balance outcomes. The research showed that autistic students’ academic success was predictable, and these predictions were more accurate than predictions of their peers’ success. For first-year success, study choice issues were the most important predictors (parallel program and application timing). Issues with participation in pre-education (missingness of grades in pre-educational records) and delays at the beginning of autistic students’ studies (reflected in age) were the most influential predictors for the second-year success and delays in the second and final year of their bachelor’s program. In addition, academic performance (average grades) was the strongest predictor for degree completion in 3 years. These insights can enable universities to develop tailored support for autistic students. Using early warning signals from administrative data, institutions can lower dropout risk and increase degree completion for autistic students.
Introduction Student success is positively linked to engagement, but negatively linked to emotional exhaustion. Though both constructs have been conceptualized as opposites previously, we hypothesize that students can demonstrate high or low engagement and emotional exhaustion simultaneously. We used quantitative and qualitative data to identify the existence of four student profiles based on engagement and exhaustion scores. Furthermore, we studied how profiles associate to study behaviour, wellbeing and academic achievement, and what risks, protective factors and support requirements students and teachers identify for these profiles. Methods The Student Wellbeing Monitor 2021, developed by Inholland University of Applied Sciences, was used to identify profiles using quadrant analyses based on high and low levels of engagement and emotional exhaustion (n= 1460). Correlation analyses assessed profile specific differences on study behaviours, academic delay, and wellbeing. Semi-structured interviews with students and teachers are currently in progress to further explore the profiles, to identify early signals, and to inspect support requirements. Results The quadrant analysis revealed four profiles: low engagement and low exhaustion (energised-disengaged; 9%), high engagement and low exhaustion (energised-engaged; 15%), low engagement and high exhaustion (exhausted-disengaged; 48%), and high engagement and high exhaustion (exhausted-engaged; 29%). Overall, engaged students demonstrated more active study behaviours and more social connections and interactions with fellow students and teachers. The exhausted students scored higher on depressive symptoms and stress. The exhausted-engaged students reported the highest levels of performance pressure, while the energised-disengaged students had the lowest levels of performance pressure. So far, students and teachers recognise the profiles and have suggested several support recommendations for each profile. Discussion The results show that students can be engaged but at the same time are exhausting themselves. A person-oriented mixed-methods approach helps students and teachers gain awareness of the diversity and needs of students, and improve wellbeing and student success.
MULTIFILE
Mastering academic language (AL) by elementary school students is important for achieving school success. The extent to which teachers play a role in stimulating students’ AL development may differ. Two types of AL stimulating behavior are distinguished: aimed at students’ understanding and at triggering students’ production of AL. As mathematics requires abstract language use, AL occurs frequently. The instructional methods teachers use during mathematics instruction may offer different opportunities for AL stimulating behavior. In our first study, based on expert opinions, instructional methods were categorized according to opportunities they offer for stimulating students’ AL development. In the second study, video-observations of mathematics instruction of elementary school teachers were analyzed with respect to AL stimulating behavior and instructional methods used. Results showed that actual AL stimulating behavior of teachers corresponds to the expert opinions, except for behavior shown during task evaluation. Teachers differ in time and frequency of their use of instructional methods and therefore in opportunities for stimulating AL development. Four teaching profiles, reflecting different AL stimulating potential, were constructed: ‘teacher talking’, ‘balanced use of methods’, ‘getting students at work’ and ‘interactive teaching’. Teachers showed more types of behavior aimed at students’ AL understanding than at production.
LINK
Digital transformation has been recognized for its potential to contribute to sustainability goals. It requires companies to develop their Data Analytic Capability (DAC), defined as their ability to collect, manage and analyze data effectively. Despite the governmental efforts to promote digitalization, there seems to be a knowledge gap on how to proceed, with 37% of Dutch SMEs reporting a lack of knowledge, and 33% reporting a lack of support in developing DAC. Participants in the interviews that we organized preparing this proposal indicated a need for guidance on how to develop DAC within their organization given their unique context (e.g. age and experience of the workforce, presence of legacy systems, high daily workload, lack of knowledge of digitalization). While a lot of attention has been given to the technological aspects of DAC, the people, process, and organizational culture aspects are as important, requiring a comprehensive approach and thus a bundling of knowledge from different expertise. Therefore, the objective of this KIEM proposal is to identify organizational enablers and inhibitors of DAC through a series of interviews and case studies, and use these to formulate a preliminary roadmap to DAC. From a structure perspective, the objective of the KIEM proposal will be to explore and solidify the partnership between Breda University of Applied Sciences (BUas), Avans University of Applied Sciences (Avans), Logistics Community Brabant (LCB), van Berkel Logistics BV, Smink Group BV, and iValueImprovement BV. This partnership will be used to develop the preliminary roadmap and pre-test it using action methodology. The action research protocol and preliminary roadmap thereby developed in this KIEM project will form the basis for a subsequent RAAK proposal.
The valorization of biowaste, by exploiting side stream compounds as feedstock for the sustainable production of bio-based materials, is a key step towards a more circular economy. In this regard, chitin is as an abundant resource which is accessible as a waste compound of the seafood industry. From a commercial perspective, chitin is chemically converted into chitosan, which has multiple industrial applications. Although the potential of chitin has long been established, the majority of seafood waste containing chitin is still left unused. In addition, current processes which convert chitin into chitosan are sub-optimal and have a significant impact on the environment. As a result, there is a need for the development of innovative methods producing bio-based products from chitin. This project wants to contribute to these challenges by performing a feasibility study which demonstrates the microbial bioconversion of chitin to polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs). Specifically, the consortium will attempt to cultivate and engineer a recently discovered bacterium Chi5, so that it becomes able to directly produce PHAs from chitin present in solid shrimp shell waste. If successful, this project will provide a proof-of-concept for a versatile microbial production platform which can contribute to: i) the valorization of biowaste from the seafood industry, ii) the efficient utilization of chitin as feedstock, iii) the sustainable and (potentially low-cost) production of PHAs. The project consortium is composed of: i) Van Belzen B.V., a Dutch shrimp trading company which are highly interested in the valorization of their waste streams, hereby making their business model more profitable and sustainable. ii) AMIBM, which have recently isolated and characterized the Chi5 marine-based chitinolytic bacterium and iii) Zuyd, which will link aforementioned partners with students in creating a novel collaboration which will stimulate the development of students and the translation of academic knowledge to a feasible application technology for SME’s.
Society continues to place an exaggerated emphasis on women's skins, judging the value of lives lived within, by the colour and condition of these surfaces. This artistic research will explore how the skin of a painting might unpack this site of judgement, highlight its objectification, and offer women alternative visualizations of their own sense of embodiment. This speculative renovation of traditional concepts of portrayal will explore how painting, as an aesthetic body whose material skin is both its surface and its inner content (its representations) can help us imagine our portrayal in a different way, focusing, not on what we look like to others, but on how we sense, touch, and experience. How might we visualise skin from its ghostly inner side? This feminist enquiry will unfold alongside archival research on The Ten Largest (1906-07), a painting series by Swedish Modernist Hilma af Klint. Initial findings suggest the artist was mapping traditional clothing designs into a spectral, painterly idea of a body in time. Fundamental methods research, and access to newly available Af Klint archives, will expand upon these roots in maps and women’s craft practices and explore them as political acts, linked to Swedish Life Reform, and knowingly sidestepping a non-inclusive art history. Blending archival study with a contemporary practice informed by eco-feminism is an approach to artistic research that re-vivifies an historical paradigm that seems remote today, but which may offer a new understanding of the past that allows us to also re-think our present. This mutuality, and Af Klint’s rhizomatic approach to image-making, will therefore also inform the pedagogical development of a Methods Research programme, as part of this post-doc. This will extend across MA and PhD study, and be further enriched by pedagogy research at Cal-Arts, Los Angeles, and Konstfack, Stockholm.
