Search results for "Literacy"

SECONDARY SCHOOL AND UNIVERSITY STUDENTS’ INTEREST IN SCIENCE SUBJECTS IN CONNECTION TO THE CHOICE OF PROFESSION

2019

One of the most important factors influencing the welfare of the society is the development of science and technology, which in turn depends on scientists and students' science literacy. The aim of the study was to investigate the interest of high school and university students in science subjects, their views on factors that raise interest in subjects and play a determining role in the choice of profession. The questionnaire of Riga secondary school and university students about their interest in science subjects in connection to the choice of their profession was carried out.  The results of the survey showed that the majority of university students are interested, or they have moderate i…

Results from the test of economic literacy in Germany and Japan: A critical discussion on the gender effect

2021

University lecturers and coordinators of business and economics courses around the world are faced with the challenge that beginning students in these courses have heterogeneous entry conditions in terms of personal characteristics. This article focuses on the economic knowledge of German and Japanese beginning students in a business and economics degree programme. The German and Japanese versions of the US-American Test of Economic Literacy were used for the assessment of the economic knowledge of German ( N = 901) and Japanese ( N = 571) students. The TEL consists of 45 items in two questionnaire versions and is based on 20 globally accepted core standards of economics. The analyses in th…

PERFORMANCE OF VOCATIONAL EDUCATION IN LATVIA IN DEVELOPING EMPLOYABILITY OF GRADUATES

2019

As the labour market changes at increasing pace, education systems need to respond. Facilitating employability of graduates and preparing them for lifelog learning and constant changes throughout their careers requires new education methods. In order to assess the current approach to developing employability of graduates in vocational education in Latvia, this article aims at evaluating the attitudes of employers on performance of vocational education in developing employability competencies, as well as investigating the practical education methods applied by vocational education institutions to facilitate employability.Total 750 companies participated in this research. A list of 17 employa…

Three Approaches to School Health Education as a Means to Higher Levels of Health Literacy

2014

It is widely acknowledged that school health education is an important means for supporting the development of pupils’ health literacy. A growing number of papers have described or suggested a variety of classroom-based and whole-school practices for developing health literacy. However, few of these papers have systematically addressed the various ways of approaching health education in schools or sought to analyze how these approaches differ from each other. This paper aims to do this. It does so by representing three approaches to school health education: the facts and skills approach, the individual thinking approach, and the personal growth and citizenship approach. The approaches diffe…

How Do Adolescents Obtain Health Information

2019

Adolescent health literacy is a promising innovation in health education. This article reports the findings of research in the experience of adolescents in the methods they used in obtaining health information. A phenomenographic research approach was used to understand how adolescents conceptualized health information obtaining. The study examined data provided by 24 adolescents aged 13 to 16 living in Latvia. The data was collected through qualitative interviews. Phenomenographic data analysis uncovered five categories of description by adolescents in the way they perceived health information obtaining: 1. An opportunity to find out “things” regarding health; 2. The use of different sourc…

2020

Background: Despite increased enrolments at primary schools in Zambia, more than half of the children in Grades 1–4 are unable to meet the required minimum standards for literacy. Aim: The study set out to examine the effects of using a phone-based mobile literacy game (Graphogame) to improve literacy skills in children and adults in rural family settings. Setting: The study was conducted in the Katete District, a rural town in the eastern province of Zambia. Methods: Participants were 73 Grade 2 learners (52% boys, mean age 9 years and 48% girls, mean age 10 years) and 37 parents (mean age 36 years). Three literacy tests, measuring letter-sound identification, phonological awareness, spell…

A Culturally Sensitive Approach to Promoting Initial Literacy Development in Africa : Ongoing and Planned Research and Development at the University …

2017

A four-year research and development program at CAPOLSA (the Centre for the Promotion of Literacy in Sub-Saharan Africa) was inspired by widespread dissatisfaction with poor literacy outcomes of mass basic schooling in Zambia and sought to test the generalizability of a scientifically grounded, computer-mediated instructional resource developed in Finland, for effective intervention in an African society where different linguistic and educational conditions obtain. Specific challenges and opportunities posed by the local sociocultural context included the prevalence of multilingualism, the relatively transparent orthographies of local languages, and poor infrastructure of the public school …

Health literacy and Infectious Diseases : Why does it matter?

2016

Objectives: Multifactorial interventions are crucial to arrest the threat posed by infectious diseases. Public involvement requires adequate information, but determinants such as health literacy can impact on the effective use of such knowledge. The influence of health literacy on infectious diseases is examined in this paper. Methods: Databases were searched from January 1999 through July 2015 seeking studies reporting on health literacy and infections such tuberculosis, malaria, and influenza, and infection-related behaviours such as vaccination and hand hygiene. HIV was excluded, as comprehensive reviews have already been published. Results: Studies were found on antibiotic knowledge and…

Health literacy: A crucial determinant of vaccination decision-making

2020

Our study exploring the influence of health literacy on influenza vaccination among pregnant women in Spain reflected how women with high health literacy were more likely to reject influenza vaccination than those with lower health literacy (Castro-Sánchez et al., 2018). Among the reasons for these women to reject the vaccine were feelings about its need, in isolation and compared with other immunizations, and claims of having received insufficient information. To mitigate such a gap, women with high health literacy would access a greater variety of information sources, including those promoting outlier or fringe opinions (Danchin et al., 2018, Vila-Candel et al., 2016b).

Language and literacy in new migration. Research, practice and policy

2021

Recent migration towards Europe is characterized by the massive presence of adults whose educational paths have been interrupted and who are thus developing literacy for the first time in a new language. A literacy test elaborated at the University of Palermo, Italy, showed that, on a sample of 774 migrants, about 30 percent could not read and/or write short words. This test assessed the learners’ abilities to read and write, whether in the Roman alphabet or in other writing systems, and whether in Italian or in other languages of learners’ repertoires. These learners with emergent literacy mostly came from sub-Saharan Africa, an area characterized by diverse forms of multilingualism, and a…