Fernandes, Sandra
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Fernandes
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Sandra
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Sandra Fernandes
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Sandra Raquel Gonçalves Fernandes - PhD in Education Sciences, specialization in Curriculum Development, at the University of Minho. Graduate degree in Education, by the same University. She is Associate Professor at the Department of Psychology and Education at Universidade Portucalense, Porto, Portugal. She is the Head of the Pedagogic Innovation Office (Gabinete de Inovação Pedagógica - GIP) at Universidade Portucalense, an institutional structure aimed to promote the quality of teaching and learning through pedagogical training and teacher professional development. She is the coordinator of the new Masters in Innovation in Education, created in 2023. She coordinated the Masters in Education Administration and Management, from 2015 to 2023. She is an integrated member of Portucalense Institute of Psychology (I2P) at Portucalense University and an external collaborating member of the Research Center on Child Studies (CIEC) at the University of Minho. She is member of several national and international research projects, with public funding. She is an Associate Editor of the Journal Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice and member of the Editorial Board of Frontiers in Education and Education Sciences (MDPI). She is a founding member and vice president of the Project Approaches in Engineering Education (PAEE) Association. Her research interests include Teacher Education, Higher Education, Curriculum Development, Education Administration and Management, Teacher Performance Assessment, Active Learning, Project-based Learning (PBL), Engineering Education, among others.
D617-2C98-5011
16315361800
Q-2679-2019Research Projects
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CINTESIS.UPT - Centro de Investigação em Tecnologias e Serviços de Saúde
Centro de Investigação em Tecnologias e Serviços de Saúde (CINTESIS.UPT), former I2P, is an R&D unit devoted to the study of cognition and behaviour in context. With an interdisciplinary focus, namely on Education, Translational and Applied Psychology
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Publication Open Access Teacher’s perspectives on collaboration and professional development in Portuguese schools2017 - Unas, Maria Manuela; Machado, Eusébio André; Fernandes, Maria Assunção Flores; Fernandes, SandraThis paper is part of a broader international research project, which includes eight case studies carried out in public schools in Portugal and in Chile. It is a comparative study, which aims to understand the way teachers describe formal and informal opportunities for collaboration in their schools and its effect in terms of practical knowledge; to identify the enablers and inhibitors that influence professional collaborative learning at school; to understand the role of teacher evaluation and student academic results on teacher's professional development; to analyse how teachers with differents skills, experiences and schools view their own professional development. In this case study, a public school, located in the north of Portugal, with sixty years of history, was selected. The participants in the study are teachers from different disciplinary areas and teaching departments. The school includes elementary and secondary school level, with regular and professional study programmes. Data collection is based on semi-structured interviews to the school director and to eight teachers, mainly coordinators of teaching departments. Results based on findings from teachers point out the importance of collaborative work, but they also recognize that schools need a reorganization that includes time for this purpose, integrated on teacher's schedule. Informal opportunities are also seen as fundamental for professional development and to improve student outcomes. Conclusions and implications for teacher collaboration and professional development will be discussed in the paper.Publication Open Access Performance appraisal of higher education teachers’ in information systems and technology: Models, practices and effects2018 - Ferreira-Oliveira, Ana Teresa; Santos, Joana; Fernandes, SandraDespite the increasing awareness of the relevance of technologies to various life domains and environments, its application to research on Information Systems and Technology Teachers’ Evaluation in Higher Education is still very limited. The IT sector has special characteristics, such as the high employability rates that are very relevant to integrate in the discussion about the teachers’ performance appraisal. Universities need to reflect about the retention of teachers with good and competitive performance appraisal systems. Also, performance appraisal models had been suffering a change in its theoretical and empirical relevance towards a process-based approach. This short paper presents a work in progress that intends to analyse the state of the art on teacher evaluation in Higher Education, specifically on Information Systems and Technology Teachers’, review national and international teacher evaluation frameworks in Higher Education, identify the main principles and assumptions underlying teacher evaluation models in Higher Education and characterize the existing models and practices of teacher evaluation, at national and international level, their main results and conclusions.Publication Open Access The role of Project-Based Learning (PBL) to promote the development of student's skills for Lifelong Learning [abstract]2024-08-01 - Fernandes, Sandra; Albuquerque, Ana Sílvia; Ferreira, Maria JoãoThis study analyses the impact of Project-Based Learning (PBL) on the development of lifelong learning skills among first-year students at Portucalense University enrolled in the Social Education bachelor's program. [...]Publication Restricted Access Integration of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) in the curriculum: Findings based on the analysis of higher education programmes2023-07 - Barros, Elisabete; Morais, Paula; Fernandes, Sandra; Araújo, Alexandra M.; Albuquerque, Ana SílviaHigher education institutions play a vital role in achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Therefore, the integration of SDGs in higher education curriculum and pedagogic practices is essential to ensure that students are equipped with the knowledge, skills, and values needed to address complex social and environmental challenges and promote sustainable development in their personal and professional lives. This study aims to investigate the extent to which higher education programmes integrate SDGs into their curricula. The research was conducted in a private higher education institution located in the north of Portugal. In this context, faculty training was developed as an institutional strategy to facilitate the incorporation of SDGs in higher education policies and practices. The study was based on a mixed-methods approach, including content analysis and semi-structured interviews. The content analysis was performed on the course outlines of selected graduate programmes from three different fields of study: business, engineering, and social sciences. To complement the content analysis, semi-structured interviews were conducted with faculty members responsible for curriculum design in the selected programmes. The preliminary results show that there is a growing trend in the integration of SDGs in the curriculum, especially in courses from the social sciences field. This integration is mainly focused on awareness-raising rather than action-oriented learning. The interviews, to be carried out in the second phase of the study, will allow to identify the main barriers and challenges to effective integration. The study also highlights the need for greater faculty support to effectively integrate the SDGs into the curriculum. The research contributes to the literature on SDGs integration in higher education and provides insights for policymakers, curriculum designers, and faculty members to better address the challenges and opportunities in sustainability education and the importance of educating students on sustainability issues.Publication Open Access Psychometric properties of the ScreenQ for measuring digital media use in Portuguese young children2022-10 - Monteiro, Rita; Hutton, John S.; Huang, Guixia; Ittenbach, Richard F.; Rocha, Nuno Barbosa; Fernandes, SandraAim Digital media use is prevalent among children and linked to potential developmental and health risks, but validated measures of children's digital media use are lacking. The aim of this study was to validate the Portuguese version of the ScreenQ with three distinct children's age groups. Methods Parents of children living in Portugal completed an online survey including the 16-item version of the ScreenQ and items related to home activities and digital media use. A combination of classical and modern theory (Rasch) methods was used for analysis. Results A total of 549 mothers and 51 fathers of 325 girls and 322 boys from 6 months to 9 years and 11 months old responded to the survey. Point-measure correlations were all positive and endorsement of item values were within acceptable ranges. Cronbach's coefficient α was acceptable for a new measure, and test–retest reliability was high. Statistically significant correlations were found between ScreenQ total scores and relevant demographic, play-related, parenting and digital media use items. Conclusion The Portuguese version of the ScreenQ exhibited sound psychometric properties, including internal consistency and concurrent validity referenced to external items. Higher ScreenQ scores were correlated with higher digital media multitasking, lower parent–child interaction, and higher concerns regarding child's learning and behaviour.Publication Open Access Active learning in higher education: Developing projects in partnership with industry2017 - Dinis-Carvalho, José; Lima, Rui M.; Costa-Lobo, Cristina; Fernandes, SandraProject Based Learning is an active learning approach with some good results perceived by students, academic staff and employers. A decade of experience and research at the Industrial Management and Engineering (IME) Integrated master programme at the University of Minho has provided strong evidence of its advantages and disadvantages. One of the PBL approaches being applied is based on projects in real contexts, where student teams must analyse and improve aspects of production systems in different companies in the region. The soft skills development as well as the attractiveness of such projects for students are common topics to be explored in such type of initiatives. The objective of this paper is to collect evidence on how such real context projects can be effective in developing specific technical knowledge on students. The technical knowledge covered in this article is based on the curricular unit “Production Systems Organization II” of the 7th semester of the IME programme. Data collection was based on the application of questionnaire to students involved in this semester (n=62). The results show that student perceptions on the effect of the project is, in average, considered “important” (4 in a Likert scale) and that the learning outcomes mostly influenced by the project are related to issues such as the nature of the project and the typology of the company. More complex production systems with complex production flows, high variety of products and more process steps together with more skilled management people, seem to bring better results in student’s understanding of the learning outcomes developed with the project.Publication Open Access Lessons learned from COVID-19 pandemic to improve project/service-based learning approaches: Findings from Engineering students2023-07 - Dinis-Carvalho, José; Fernandes, SandraThis paper describes a case study based on the implementation of a project/servicebased learning approach in the context of a curricular unit of an Engineering Education programme. It discusses the challenges and pedagogic responses found to adapt the teaching and learning process to the pandemic period, reflecting on the lessons learned to improve project/service-based learning approaches. For data collection, an online questionnaire was applied to students to collect feedback about the effectiveness of the approach adopted. The results from the questionnaire indicate that students considered the alternatives implemented by the professor completely adequate to respond to the COVID-19 constraints. The results from students’ projects revealed that they were able to go beyond what was expected from them, by presenting clear and effective outcomes of the implementation of the project in their own domestic environments. Lessons learned include ways to enhance student learning, drawing on examples from students’ own personal contexts.Publication Restricted Access Does digital media use contribute to decreased expressive language skills of pre-school-aged children? An exploratory study in Portuguese children2023-03-23 - Monteiro, Rita; Ferreira, Simão; Rocha, Nuno; Fernandes, SandraPurpose/Aim of the study The purpose of this study was to analyse the relationship between digital media use and expressive language skills in the semantic and morphosyntactic domains, of pre-school-aged children (3 years-and-0 months to 5 years-and-11 months). Materials and methods Verbal oral expression (VOE) tasks of the Pre-school Assessment of Language Test (Teste de Linguagem-Avaliação da Linguagem Pré-Escolar) were administered to 237 pre-school children with no previous identified neurological or developmental conditions associated with language disorders to assess expressive language skills in the semantic and morphosyntactic domains. Parents completed a questionnaire about their children’s medical conditions, development (using the milestones of the Survey of Well-being of Young Children and the Pre-school Paediatric Symptom Checklist), and exposure to screens (using ScreenQ). Correlations between VOE and continuous variables such as ScreenQ were computed and a regression model incorporating all variables significantly associated with total language verbal expression was created. Results ScreenQ revealed a negative and significant correlation with children’s verbal oral expression as well as significance in the regression model. Parents’ education was the most significant predictor in this regression model. Conclusions This study emphasizes the importance of parents establishing limits for digital media use and promote good practices such as co-viewing.Publication Restricted Access Engaging students in learning: findings from a study of project-led education2014-01 - Mesquita, Diana; Flores, Maria Assunção; Lima, Rui M.; Fernandes, SandraThis paper reports on findings from a three-year study of project-based learning implemented in the first year of the Industrial Engineering and Management programme, at the University of Minho, Portugal. This particular model was inspired on project-led education (PLE), following Powell and Weenk's [2003. Project-Led Engineering Education. Utrecht: Lemma] work. It aims to analyse students’ perceptions of PLE as a learning device and its implications for faculty and students’ role in teaching and learning. Data collection took place in two phases through individual surveys and focus groups to students. Findings suggest the importance of PLE as a device to enhance meaningful learning and provide evidence from students that it helps to increase their engagement in learning. Implications of PLE for faculty and students role in teaching and learning will be discussed in the paper.Publication Open Access Project-based learning in industrial engineering and management: Analysis of three curricular projects2023-07 - Sousa, Rui M.; Alves, Anabela C.; Lima, Rui M.; Mesquita, Diana; Dinis-Carvalho, José; Fernandes, SandraIn the 2nd semester of 2004/05 the Department of Production and Systems (DPS) of the Engineering School, University of Minho (UM), portugal, deployed the first Project-Based Learning (PBL) approach, involving the freshman students of the Industrial Engineering and Management Integrated master's degree (MIEGI). Since then, in every year, without exception, new PBL editions have been held in different years of the programme, each with its own characteristics. [...]