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The growing interest in applying gamified designs in higher education is challenged by mixed results in terms of student acceptance. Different players are attracted to games for different reasons and game design elements, and a better understanding of how each learner will connect to different game mechanics provides valuable input for game design and evaluation. In this paper, we present and validate a scale to measure the affinity of each player with different game elements. First, a theoretical review was carried out on three profile classifications and six motivational theoretical models, proposing a taxonomy for twelve player profiles based on three axes: relational, competence and motivational. Then, a pilot test was carried out with 54 subjects, analysing content and comprehension validity through the judgment of six experts and construct validity through an exploratory factorial analysis. Subsequently, with a sample of 1010 subjects, a confirmatory factor analysis was performed. The scale was made up of 30 items, with a Cronbach's alpha of 0.822; three main components were obtained: dominators, interactors and trackers. The results show the validity of the scale, with high levels of confidence. It provides an understanding of the player's profile in a playful context, their motivational orientation and their affinity with the specific game design. This can be used to improve the design of gamified experiences in higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Support for character education has been gaining momentum in recent years, invariably in educational circles across the Anglosphere. This paper distinguishes between good character and buen carácter and highlights the distinctive features of the two meanings attributed to good character, particularly in Spanish. It undertakes a philological, philosophical and psycho-pedagogical analysis to this end. Moreover, it draws a distinction between temperament and good character and stresses the importance of developing a higher standard for good character, both for oneself and for those in whose hands educational responsibilities are placed. For this purpose, it considers the main human qualities at the heart of of good character based on a trascended reading of one of the most prominent representations of Spanish culture, The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Seventy-five years ago, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights promoted a vision of education “directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms" (United Nations, 1948, 26.2). In 2015, the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) took this further, stating in SDG 4 that “the knowledge, skills, values and attitudes required by citizens to lead productive lives, make informed decisions and assume active roles locally and globally in facing and resolving global challenges can be acquired through education for sustainable development and global citizenship education” (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization [UNESCO], 2016, p. 14). What might the adoption of this educational mission involve for higher education? And what does it mean in a challenging global context following the COVID pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine? This paper argues that the current global tumult should catalyse reflection as to the purpose and content of higher education. It focuses on the importance of education for “values and attitudes”, emphasized as an essential component of global citizenship and leadership education in the rubric of SDG 4. It proposes a return to the philosophical categories of “character” and “virtue”, arguing that the societal orientation of global universities and their aspiration “to educate the citizens and citizen-leaders for our society” (Harvard College, 2022) necessitates a renewal of theoretically rigorous, pedagogically effective, and practically relevant character education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to propose a conceptual model that links the influence of a gamified context to aspects relating to self-regulation in learning. Although extensive literature has been written on the subject of self-regulated learning, there has been little exploration of the environment and works that consider gamification as an effective tool for creating a favourable teaching-learning context to stimulate self-regulation are non-existent. The combination of these two lines, which until now have been studied in isolation, might encourage the teaching community to direct its efforts towards the design of gamified systems within the classroom to instruct and encourage self-regulation. The proposed model presents the key variables to consider, along with a solid theoretical justification for the proposals made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Service-Learning (SL) aims to improve students' academic knowledge and performance, as well as their civic and social competencies. This study uses the meta-analysis technique to summarise up-to-date research findings on SL in scientific papers that used mixed methods research. The findings indicate that SL leads to significant improvements in students, especially in terms of knowledge acquisition (d=1.07), with a similar effect size for the few studies using a control group (d=0.89), although this effect size is smaller in terms of attitude toward service (d=0.45). There are no significant effects when these variables are compared with dependent variables such as programme duration, gender, or sample size. Moreover, there is high heterogeneity in the evaluation methods and measurement instruments used in the articles. Although research on SL is increasing significantly, the methodological quality of most of the studies reviewed is quite low. It can be concluded that SL is beneficial to the students involved in the service, however, in order to properly appreciate the different scenarios of the findings, more rigorous research designs are required. We would recommend creating uniform research protocols and extending SL using mixed methodology across every discipline, including the arts, and at every level of education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Universities have, at present, generally taken on as their own the role of providing comprehensive training that contributes to academic, professional, and social development. As a result, civic and social competences have become increasingly important, given their potential contribution to optimising university students' transition to the labour market. The objective of this work is to study the psychometric properties of a scale for assessing a range of civic and social competences in higher education and to analyse whether students' cycle and field of knowledge shape how these competences develop. To this end, after randomly dividing the sample of 996 university students, we performed an exploratory factorial analysis followed by a confirmatory factorial analysis. We then conducted a 2 × 2 Multivariate Analysis of Variance (cycle × field of knowledge), taking as dependent variables the factors obtained previously. In addition to a satisfactory solution of the scale, both in factor structure and in levels of internal consistency, the results reveal differences regarding the study variables. While first-cycle students display a high level of development of these competences, we found no differences regarding field of knowledge. However, significant effects were apparent in the interaction of these two variables, as first-cycle students from Health Sciences and Engineering-Architecture and second-cycle students from Social-Legal Sciences and Arts-Humanities displayed higher scores. This paper concludes by highlighting the need for higher education institutions to promote the development of civic and social competences to a greater extent. To do so, they should consider methodological strategies and programs that react to this need so that levels of social participation and transition to employment can be enhanced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the negative or opposite of entropic disintegration as understood in physical sciences and applies this, metaphorically, to the online enterprise. Negentropic behaviours are those that bring re-integration, renewal, and eventual positive states to the institution. Online learning, which has now been a staple in most college and university strategic plans, has the potential for significant negentropic impact on the enterprise of higher education within individual institutions. Here we focus on how to apply negentropic theoretical constructs to the leadership of online enterprises with the expectation of increased positive forward motion for the higher education institution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper shows the results of a longitudinal study on the integration of MOOCs in university classrooms and their influence on academic performance. The relationship between performance and the course design and the type of student participation is discussed. Performance has been assessed through evidence of learning, while the design and influence of the type of participation have been checked using standard instruments: TAM (Technology Acceptance Model) and IMMS (Instructional Materials Motivation Survey). Evidence obtained shows that participation in a MOOC improves learning results, and that both the type of course design (defined by an intensive use of social networks and e-activities) and active participation have an influence on academic success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

MOOCs are seen as the latest development in online learning and since their launch in 2008 they have become an integral part of university course curricula. We are currently at an early stage in the development of MOOCs; few studies have been published on their assessment so far. Consequently, this paper is based on a literature review, using the main academic databases JCR and Scopus, on 33 articles published between 2013 and 2015 with the objective of determining the educational quality of MOOCs. The methodology is based on a literature review procedure in which seven categories were distinguished when carrying out the analysis: course planning, contents, methodology, resources and activities, motivation, communication, and assessment and certification. The results of this study show that the assessment of the quality of MOOCs refers to a slightly higher than average quality, except for the three variables of content, resources and activities, and assessment. However, it warns of a lack of studies that assess the pedagogical quality of MOOCs and so we suggest further studies are needed with greater methodological rigour to obtain conclusive results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The academic organization of university degrees, in the frame of the European Higher Education Area, has facilitated the constitution of teachers' teams (Zabalza, 2009; Lopez, 2007). This is one of the key points in the processes of organization and improvement (Lester and Evans, 2009; Bacharach, Washut and Dahlberg, 2008) of higher education, but simultaneously, a hanging topic for the difficulty in obtaining a culture's change of university teachers, also demarcated in slightly agile and flexible structures. The paper is focused in a research caught out a group of university teachers, with the aim to realize a diagnosis of the situation of the teachers' teams between the courses 2009-2010 to 2011-2012. The methodology used was the survey, with questionnaire and focus group. The results show that the organization in teachers teams is a reality perceived positively by teachers, but with problems and challenges that we have still further to go. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study was to identify segments of university professors with different predispositions and use of the blended-learning methodology in their teaching routine. Predictor variables were taken from individual socio-demographic and professional characteristics; each one of the phases of adoption typified in the Theory of Diffusion of Innovation, proposed by E. Rogers, were taken as criterion variables. The study involved 486 teachers from different universities in the Autonomous Community of Castilla y León (Spain). Data treatment was run via segmentation analysis using the CHAID algorithm. The results showed that the prior training on b-learning as the main predictor variable in 4 of the 5 classification trees obtained. The paper concludes by emphasizing the importance of knowing the expansion phases of the b-learning adoption process in academics, identifying user types or profiles based on individual characteristics, in order to inform decision-making by the university administrators interested in accelerating the dissemination of such educational innovations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Universities are training contexts with special characteristics, some of which are now undergoing profound change processes. So, having a well-prepared teaching staff has become a basic need that requires, in turn, having training plans as a strategic resource for improving the institutional development. The challenge now lies in how to design new teacher education programs more tailored to the changing context of the new Higher Education institutions: less casual and more systematic training, with targets from medium to long term, training focused on the needs of the institution rather than individual needs. Looking back on the experience, the paper analyzes the actual meaning of teacher training in universities and the factors affecting it; the functions performed by training and the conditions that should meet to fulfill them properly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the society integrates the inclusion model in their policies and dynamics, Universities will also articulating measures to address and respond to students with disabilities, and technology plays a crucial role as inclusive tool. The convergence process among technology, disability and education, necessarily involves the reformulation of the concept of accessibility, which has undergone an evolution from models focusing on purely technological issues to contextual approaches in which the educational scenario begins to emerge itself as an own environment. This paper proposes an innovative model of intervention in the processes of planning and development of accessibility, which tries to cover the gap generated by the technological frameworks, providing an educational approach capable of guiding decision-making process in order to implement an inclusive culture in Universities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teaching has been a widely discussed issue in our context, especially since the implementation of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). The new ways of conceiving and describing the teaching, learning and assessment require a rethinking of the university pedagogy. However, this reformulation should not be limited to a psycho-pedagogical question. This paper presents the teaching work from a relational and human dimension that, not surprisingly, has also an impact on learning and student development. The communitarianism criticism of the principles of liberalism emphasize the importance of this dimension of teaching work, and raise questions that should be addressed in order to maintain the university as a unique life experience, and an important social institution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper is the result of a research line aimed at identifying and describing the steps followed by competent university teaching for knowledge elaboration and manifestation. With this purpose, the processes followed by some particularly competent, fully experienced lecturers at the University of Barcelona is analysed to determine the set of knowledge and abilities which allows them to reach high-quality teaching standards. Thus, the present study attempts to identify lecturers' sources of professional learning through the recovery of habitual teaching contexts which end up becoming invaluable learning and training opportunities. After putting forward the ways in which lecturers acquire and build useful knowledge on their everyday teaching practice, some guidelines for initial and ongoing training of university lecturers are also given and put an end to the present work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the social policies' main topics in modern societies is the university studies. It is not irrelevant to the policy maker that university students are the new voters. But the birth of the universities in the Middle Age was the result of students and teachers rebelliousness against the power of the State. The reason of this paradox is the difference between the objective of university education then and now. This paper is an approach to the libertarian point of view of university education. An explanation of the present inefficiency is analysed, mainly from a historical perspective, together with a mid-term forecasting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing body of research related to the role of gender in human interactions with information technology has emerged in recent years. In this paper we analyse the web acceptance and usage between male professors and female professors. Partial least-squares (PLS), a second-generation multivariate analysis technique, was used to estimate the parameters of the proposed models. First, the scale psychometric characteristics were tested (validity and reliability). Second, the structural model was tested. The empirical results provided strong support for the hypotheses, demonstrating how male professors and female professors differ in their 'web acceptance and usage' processes; and highlighting the roles of ease of use and usefulness in determining the use of the web among them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The educational innovation projects carried out in work groups constitute a valuable strategy in teachers' education. In this paper a multicase qualitative study is presented. It is aimed to advance the understanding of the processes involved in educational innovations. A qualitative analysis of five cases of university lecturers taking part in different work groups was developed. Lecturers were selected from different degrees from the University of Malaga. All of them have been involved in educational innovation programmes for at least three years. Data were collected from document analysis, in-depth interviews, participant observation and field diaries. Results from qualitative analysis allow us to integrate different views and increase our knowledge on the internal structure of educational innovations. Conclusions regarding processes of educational innovation and methodological concerns are included. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the very beginning of this new century the university has been living paradigmatic changes. Reflecting on new qualifications that can fulfil the new professional demands is not the only issue on discussion. If the European Space of Higher Education (ESHE) really aims to achieve its foundational objectives, it should incorporate in the curriculum some citizenship related subjects. This paper aims to explain what competences should become part of the curriculum so that the university itself contributes in the education of citizens ethically and morally compromised with our society and with the development of a European citizenship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]