Purpose: The objective of the presented pilot study was to test the applicability of a metric to specifically measure performance improvement via a hands-on workshop about collaborative robotics. Design/methodology/approach: Candidates interested in acquiring basic practical skills in working with a collaborative robot completed a distance…

Quality of life (QoL) is influenced by physical and psychological health, but includes subjective qualities that are inherent in social and cognitive processes necessary for healthy aging and overall well-being. A quantitative study analyzed the effects of art therapy for 14 aging adults utilizing the Brunnsviken Brief Quality of Life Scale (BBQ)…

The purpose of this article is to recognize the importance of mentoring in higher education and to identify useful strategies to ensure effective mentorship. The authors demonstrate and apply evidence-based approaches and strategies for effective mentorship in both online and in-person classroom settings. A discussion of four major strategies…

Environmental education is a decisive tool in the promotion of a citizenry committed to environmental sustainability. Among the current challenges, the management of water shortage is one of the main issues, thus addressing it from childhood is crucial to enhance the connection with nature. Few studies report on the impact of educational…

E-books have become more prevalent in the present day, due to their availability and numerous advantages over textbooks, and more so in the domain of computer science and programming. On the other hand, learners also use Q&A websites such as Stack Overflow as these websites provides a platform for asking and answering questions in…

Being a social worker requires facing many social upheavals, juggling with organizational changes, and working with various populations with increasing complex social issues. Future social workers must quickly familiarize themselves with the conditions of the practice. In order to do so, it is essential to provide students with multiple…

The last day of a course is often viewed as awkward, abrupt, and even antithetical to a course's aims. More often than not, prime opportunities for reflection, reinforcement, reconciliation, and closure are typically subsumed to administrative tasks and end-of-course exhaustion. This paper summarizes the scant end-of-course literature, reviews the…

Background: To produce graduates with strong knowledge and skills in the application of evidence into healthcare practice, it is imperative that all undergraduate health and social care students are taught, in an efficient manner, the processes involved in applying evidence into practice. The two main concepts that are linked to the application of…

Purpose: The aims of this study were to explore expressive vocabulary growth rates of children who are deaf or hard of hearing (DHH) during critical periods of brain development (birth to 3 years) as well as the factors that influence the trajectories of vocabulary growth in these early years of development. Of primary interest was the effect of…

Background: Intervention construct validity procedures test the efficacy of a program to impact on targeted theory constructs. Purpose: To examine the intervention construct validity of the Planning to be Active (PBA) and Mentored Planning to be Active (MPBA) programs on high school youth residing in Appalachia. Methods: Twenty high schools in…

Intergenerational playgroups purposively bring older people, young children and their caregivers together to engage in play and develop reciprocal relationships. Intergenerational research focuses on the benefits for participants, with much less known about how these programmes sustain. This paper discusses and explores programme sustainability…

Shared book reading is a well-established vehicle for promoting child language and early development. Yet, existing shared reading interventions have primarily included only children age 3 years and older and high quality dialogic strategies have been less systematically applied for infants and toddlers. To address this gap, we have developed a…

A multiple probe design across participants was used to evaluate the effectiveness of progressive time delay (PTD) during small group instruction to teach social problem-solving to preschoolers and to assess generalization to novel contexts. PTD was used to teach children to both name and use a variety of problem-solving solutions. Target…

This study sought to assess the social validity of "It Takes Two to Talk (ITTT)"®--the Hanen Program for parents, delivered to families of children with language delays in Valencia, Spain. Social validity was assessed using a multi-method approach--questionnaires (filled out by the parents) and a focus group--at different times during…

Multi-Sensory Environments (also called sensory or Snoezelen® rooms) are specialised spaces that contain equipment to modify the environment. They are commonly used in special-needs schools with autistic children, but empirical investigation into how to best use Multi-Sensory Environments with autistic children has been limited. Based on…