Cuban government apologizes to Montreal-area family after delivering wrong body
Cuba's foreign affairs minister has apologized to a Montreal-area family after they were sent the wrong body following the death of a loved one.
Many students across the globe had to transition between taking lessons in lecture halls to their living rooms in the COVID-19 pandemic.
This drastic change in environment prompted questions about differences in the learning experience. Among them: does the body feel less stress in a virtual classroom as opposed to a physical one?
The answer could be yes, according to a small study measuring heart rate and cortisol levels in students' saliva, which found that medical students were physiologically more relaxed in an online lecture rather than an in-person one.
The study, published in the journal Anatomical Sciences Education at the end of July, looked at a group of 82 medical students who were attending either face-to-face classes or online lectures in order to measure the ways their bodies expressed stress.
"We know that stress strongly affects learning and memory processes, as well as on sustaining attention," Morris Gellisch, a research associate with Ruhr University Bochum in Germany and one of the study's authors, said in an August press release.
"To date, the differences between in-person and online teaching have often been assessed using questionnaires in which subjective parameters such as motivation or perceived stress were surveyed. But since learning has a definite physiological component, this raised the question of whether there are any differences in this regard as well."
The study only looked at medical students and was carried out as they attended either a microscopic anatomy course in person or the same practical course virtually, meaning the results may not be applicable to every learning experience or field.
Researchers noted that focusing on medical students was key to their study — while some disciplines require more reading and writing, a lot of medical school relies on the development of practical skills.
In a microscopic anatomy course, students learn about how to study tissue and anatomy at the microscopic level.
Researchers followed the students in a blended learning seminar on microscopic anatomy, in which groups attending the course online alternated with groups attending classes in person.
Every day a class was held, one group would be in the classroom physically, while another group followed along online simultaneously.
Students attending the in-person classes received hands-on experience with a microscope, while students online used a virtual microscopy platform to recreate the experience.
For this study, participants filled out questionnaires directly before the commencement of the course regarding their demographic information and their self-perceived stress levels.
Researchers collected data on the third day of the course. The heart rates of students attending in person and online were recorded throughout the entire 120-minute class, while saliva samples were taken at the beginning, after 60 minutes, and at the very end of the class. Those in the online learning group had previously been given instructions on how to take their own heart rate and saliva samples.
There were 37 students in the online learning group, and 35 in the in-person group.
Researchers also obtained control measurements of the participants' heart rates and saliva samples on a weekend when participants were not in class. This control data also included 10 additional students on top of those who provided data during the experiment.
Researchers found that the online group had significantly less variability in their heart rate levels throughout the class, meaning that their heart rates were more steady overall and less likely to suddenly race in response to a stressor.
The saliva samples were used to look at cortisol levels — a hormone that is a well-known stress marker, released in the body after a stressful event.
Those in the face-to-face class had much higher cortisol concentrations in their saliva, researchers found, compared to those in the online groups.
Researchers also obtained control measurements of the participants' heart rates and salivary cortisol levels on a weekend when participants were not in class.
Gellisch noted in the release that physiological stress isn't always negative — in the context of a learning environment, the body being in a state of temporary excitation can assist with focus.
Stress, in a physiological context, refers to how the body deviates from the physiological ideal to handle a specific stressor.
One other thing researchers found was that when they looked at the questionnaires in comparison with the heart rate and saliva data, there was a correlation observed between an increased enjoyment during class and an increased level of physiological stress, but only for the in-person class, suggesting the in-person learning could come with a higher enjoyment along with a higher tension.
Although online learning has existed since the internet became a part of our regular lives, the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic brought online learning to the forefront in many countries, with many schools in Canada shifting largely to online learning or hybrid learning for much of 2020 into 2021.
Studies have been mixed on the impact of online learning, with some online learning students reporting in a Canadian study from 2021 that they felt like they mattered less in the classroom than in-person students.
This new study measuring physiological stress noted that there was a difference between online learning methods that had been developed over a longer period of time and the emergency remote learning that was instigated at the beginning of the pandemic, pointing out that virtual microscopy has existed as a tool for learning since before the pandemic.
Although researchers found a connection between these physiological stress levels and online vs. in-person learning, the study wasn't intended to measure the impact this stress had on the students' actual learning itself.
"Therefore, future research approaches should assess physiological data in different learning environments with a focus on performance differences that should be investigated as individually as possible," the study stated.
Cuba's foreign affairs minister has apologized to a Montreal-area family after they were sent the wrong body following the death of a loved one.
The federal government's proposed change to capital gains taxation is expected to increase taxes on investments and mainly affect wealthy Canadians and businesses. Here's what you need to know about the move.
On a night she should have been mourning, a nurse from Quebec's Laurentians region says she was forced to clean up her husband after he died at a hospital in Montreal.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is accusing Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre of welcoming 'the support of conspiracy theorists and extremists,' after the Conservative leader was photographed meeting with protesters, which his office has defended.
"It's a bit of a complicated pattern; we've got a lot going on," said Jennifer Smith of the Meteorological Service of Canada in an interview with CTVNews.ca on Wednesday. "[As is] typical with weather, all of these things are related."
Boeing said Wednesday that it lost US$355 million on falling revenue in the first quarter, another sign of the crisis gripping the aircraft manufacturer as it faces increasing scrutiny over the safety of its planes and accusations of shoddy work from a growing number of whistleblowers.
Police tangled with student demonstrators in Texas and California while new encampments sprouted Wednesday at Harvard and other colleges as school leaders sought ways to defuse a growing wave of pro-Palestinian protests.
Members of the Bank of Canada's governing council were split on how long the central bank should wait before it starts cutting interest rates when they met earlier this month.
A North Bay, Ont., lawyer who abandoned 15 clients – many of them child protection cases – has lost his licence to practise law.
A property tax bill is perplexing a small townhouse community in Fergus, Ont.
When identical twin sisters Kim and Michelle Krezonoski were invited to compete against some of the world’s most elite female runners at last week’s Boston Marathon, they were in disbelief.
The giant stone statues guarding the Lions Gate Bridge have been dressed in custom Vancouver Canucks jerseys as the NHL playoffs get underway.
A local Oilers fan is hoping to see his team cut through the postseason, so he can cut his hair.
A family from Laval, Que. is looking for answers... and their father's body. He died on vacation in Cuba and authorities sent someone else's body back to Canada.
A former educational assistant is calling attention to the rising violence in Alberta's classrooms.
The federal government says its plan to increase taxes on capital gains is aimed at wealthy Canadians to achieve “tax fairness.”
At 6'8" and 350 pounds, there is nothing typical about UBC offensive lineman Giovanni Manu, who was born in Tonga and went to high school in Pitt Meadows.
Kevin the cat has been reunited with his family after enduring a harrowing three-day ordeal while lost at Toronto Pearson International Airport earlier this week.