Students in higher education have been shown to have difficulties in developing their critical thinking skills, such as analysis and problem solving, reasoning and argumentation. Open-ended tasks offer opportunities for students to develop their own interpretations of various sources, to critically analyse domain-specific knowledge and utilize…

The physical and chemical properties of Milk of Magnesia provide examples of chemical concepts and opportunities for investigative practical work for secondary chemistry students of all ages. Basing the lesson on the contents of that familiar blue bottle, which is probably lurking somewhere in a cupboard in most households, also showcases the role…

Access to higher education in Portugal is governed by a quota system (numerus clausus). The purpose of this article is to answer two questions: First, how does the "numerus clausus" system shape the demand for medical studies? Second, how do non-enrolled medical candidates influence the global allocation system and generate waves of…

This paper assesses the impact on the curricula of undergraduate programmes in Argentina of the quality assurance mechanism implemented by the National Commission for University Evaluation and Accreditation (CONEAU). The paper examines curricula changes in pharmacy, biochemistry and agriculture undergraduate programmes to show the major…

[beta]-lactamases are hydrolytic enzymes that inactivate the [beta]-lactam ring of antibiotics such as penicillins and cephalosporins. The major diversity of studies carried out until now have mainly focused on the characterization of [beta]-lactamases recovered among clinical isolates of Gram-positive staphylococci and Gram-negative…