The transition from high school to university often amounts to a muddled process, making it both an exciting and challenging time for many undergraduate students. Integrating both academically and socially is key in this respect. Social support from peers and teaching staff, but also from family and friends, can have a decisive impact. A learning…

The present study was to teach metabolic syndrome (MetS) disease through a scenario developed according to the problem-based learning (PBL) approach in the biochemistry class. The study was designed as a single group pre-test and post-test research. The study group consisted of first-year students (N = 183) from the nursing department within the…

Future students are confronted with a complex world that demands the ability to solve problems in unstructured, undefined, and unfamiliar situations. The aim of the present study was to investigate the development of problem-solving skills through the implementation of Problem-Based Learning (PBL). While previous research has primarily focused on…

Teaching programming efficiently to students in the first year of computer science education is challenging. It is especially cumbersome to retain the interest of both groups, when the student group consists of novice (i.e., those who have never programmed before) and expert programmers in the same crowd. Thus, individualized teaching cannot be…

Optimization is a vital mathematical concept widely applied in various engineering fields. However, teaching this subject to engineering students often involves abstract materials, making it challenging for them to grasp. To address this issue, a group of five mathematics lecturers collaborated on designing a practical lesson on optimization for…

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of argumentation, during the hypothetico-deductive reasoning (HDR) process in the problem-based learning (PBL) approach, on nursing students' achievements and to determine the argumentation levels in the biochemistry course on the topic of endocrine and nervous systems. The participants…

Background: Developing teamwork skills is a central objective of engineering education. Psychological safety and conflict management are pivotal components of teamwork, yet despite their significance, research in engineering project-based learning (PBL) contexts is scant. Understanding students' experiences with psychological safety and its…

The internationalisation of Higher Education is broadly seen as a positive development. It is a process that is said to contribute to intercultural skills acquisition, which is deemed crucial in today's globalised society. Yet, research has shown that the benefits of being confronted with other ideas and viewpoints can get lost in translation due…

Engaging students in active learning has proved to transform reflexive knowledge into true learning of material in medical education. Histology is one subject area that consistently presents as a challenge for medical and undergraduate students. The large amount of complex information needed to completely understand and interpret histological…

Problem-based learning (PBL) has been implemented with different levels of success in first-year engineering education in response to the rapidly growing requirements for a higher degree of learner agency in graduates. This study is contextualised in a systemic problem-based learning environment and explores the sources of first-year engineering…

Introduction to Computer Science is traditionally the first course that all computer science and software engineering majors take. The course introduces many problem-solving techniques which can be challenging for many freshman students. In order to mitigate some of the issues of this course, we, at the Higher Education Institute, introduced a new…

Educational escape rooms are immersive puzzle-based games that rely on teamwork skills in problem-solving, critical thinking, and communication. This paper describes the development of desert island themed escape rooms in a blended learning environment using physical and online puzzles that were hosted on Genially. The blended escape rooms were…

Universities are recognizing the need to prepare graduates to think conceptually and have the ability to take on complex, real-world problems. Strategies to assess conceptual knowledge are limited and often require more time and effort to complete than is accessible for most undergraduate courses. Card sorting is a very broad technique for…

This study aimed to investigate the influence of a team leader's personality on students' academic performance and explore the underlying mechanism. Three hundred thirty-eight university students who were enrolled in a Happy Psychology curriculum participated in the survey. Hierarchical linear regression was used to test the hypotheses, with…

Conceptualizations of "effective communication" vary across contexts and are largely dependent on the needs and social practices of communities. As a global field of study and practice, Engineering is but one community where researchers and practitioners have come together to unpack and conceptualize what it means to communicate…