International Journal of Educational Research最新文献

This study uses a questionnaire survey (n = 2.098) to examine how the use of everyday language and slower-paced teaching in math instruction regulates the practice of rules of recognition and realization. The results of a Structural Equational Modelling (SEM) analysis revealed that while the recognition-realization-rules formula was confirmed, the better way to improve students’ performance in math tests was not to slow the pace of teaching but to use everyday language because the latter meaningfully linked to their context-based experiences. This means an innovative presentation of pedagogical information through either unpacking or enhanced pedagogy greatly improves their results in math tests.

Across the former Soviet space, governments have grappled with fundamental questions around how to build or re-form sovereign nations, how to deal with the legacies of the preceding Soviet era, and how to navigate intense globalization processes that were further stimulated with the collapse of the communist bloc in 1991. Structural reforms have extended to all aspects of society, particularly to social institutions such as higher education that had historically been very closely linked to the state. One response to change has been the massive expansion of higher education systems. The dramatic growth of the ex-Soviet higher education systems and the impact of the path-altering events of 1991 lead to the research questions this paper explores, which are, 1) To what extent did HEIs created between 1991 and 1996 represent a break from the Soviet past? and 2) How do patterns in the emergence of new HEIs compare across the former Soviet space? Using the cases of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, drawing theoretically from sociological institutionalism and methodologically from a comparative case study including in-depth interviews with 36 faculty members, this paper sets out a novel typology of four distinct patterns in the new HEIs that emerged in the first five years following the Soviet breakdown. These are classified as ‘external’, ‘hybrid’, ‘bi-national’ and ‘neo-Soviet’, each being distinguishable in terms of their organization, founding actors, and funding model. Through this comparative investigation, the paper elaborates on the dynamics of structural reforms in higher education.

Project-based learning (PjBL) is used in classrooms around the world. During PjBL projects, students develop shared beliefs about the capabilities of their groups (collective efficacy) and fellow group members (proxy efficacy). Currently, knowledge about how these shared beliefs are associated with the performances of PjBL groups is limited. The central question addressed in this study concerns what role do collective efficacy and proxy efficacy beliefs have in the performances of PjBL groups completing science projects in school settings? Participants were 252 (46 female, 206 male) Grade 8 science students at two Catholic high schools in Sydney, Australia, randomly assigned to one of 63 project groups. Within each group, students were randomly assigned to one of 4 roles – coordinator, fixer, checker, or communicator. Data were self-reports and teacher summative assessments. Data collection occurred three times over a five-week period. Multilevel modelling was used to examine relationships between the study variables. This study found that proxy efficacy beliefs regarding the coordinator and communicator at the project midpoint had statistically significant associations with the performance of PjBL groups. It was also found that collective efficacy for group performance at Time 3 was associated with the performance of PjBL groups on the summative task. These findings provide novel insights into the role of efficacy beliefs in the performance of PjBL groups. A key takeaway is that beliefs about group members’ capabilities to fulfill their roles are important in the developing stages of projects, with shared beliefs about the group's capabilities for high achievement becoming important in the latter stages of projects. As such, these findings should provide educators with information about when they should nurture certain types of efficacy beliefs over the duration of PjBL projects.

The activist underpinnings of intercultural education may be more effective when the theories about the peripheries prioritize self-criticality in conceptualizing and implementing this pedagogy. This warrants examining how epistemic agency is exercised by educators to align the sociologies of intercultural education with the ecologies of their spaces. The aims of this paper are, (a) to unpack the cultural and epistemic formations of teachers’ understandings of the premises and objectives of intercultural education and (b) prompt southern epistemic subjects to produce knowledge about intercultural education that accounts for their epistemological positionalities and their consideration of local intimacies, needs and aspirations. This qualitative study uses email interviews with Moroccan EFL teachers to elicit their epistemic input rather than to situate their responses among mainstream literatures. Findings illuminated the complex epistemic processes that educators are engaged in to construct their situated knowledges informed by the intersection of available scholarships, their ontologies and contextual factors. Findings suggest that educators’ exercising of intercultural education is problematized by the lack of training which leads to ‘improvisation’ and the high-abstract rhetorics in literature which may require educators to sustain more efforts in addition to thorny attempt of doing intercultural education otherwise.

This study employed distributed leadership (DL) theory as a conceptual framework to investigate leaders' practices during and after the COVID-19 pandemic in Kuwait's public schools. It also examined the concomitant challenges the school leaders faced. Data were gathered through interviews with 16 school principals and assistant principals during the first semester after reopening of schools following the pandemic. The findings showed that the data showed that DL was adopted by school leaders to facilitate smooth transitions and manage school and community needs during the change process. Additionally, DL took various forms, including allocation leadership, delegation, networking, department leadership, and volunteering initiatives. However, school leaders faced challenges like limited autonomy, unsustainable political decisions, and a shortage of teachers.

Practitioners and policymakers worldwide emphasise the need for research-based and professionally relevant teacher education, highlighting the importance of integrating epistemologies across schools and teacher education institutions. Drawing on the affordance concept, this study qualitatively investigates the perceived opportunities and constraints of Digital Practice Assessment (DPA) as a collaborative platform for triads of pre-service teachers, school-based and university-based teacher educators. It explores the perspectives of these stakeholders on the use of technology in teaching practice assessment and examines how their collaboration within these triads can facilitate the emergence of a third space. The third space is a metaphor that denotes the meeting place of epistemologies from research and practice in teacher education, where all stakeholders’ voices are heard. This examination sheds light on the potential benefits and challenges that DPA brings to the assessment process and highlights the importance of understanding the interplay between technology, collaboration, and professional development in teacher education. Through video-stimulated recall interviews of the assessment sessions, we show how recordings of teaching practice offer opportunities such as detailed feedback, enhanced reflections, and knowledge sharing, which are essential to research-based and practice-oriented teacher education. However, certain constraints were identified, such as the lack of contextual information and rigid roles within the assessment process. Still, despite the summative nature of DPA, our findings suggest that it has the potential to integrate formative assessment to foster the emergence of a third space and to support the development and learning of pre-service teachers.

In this article explores small cities as the a potential for adult learning. By referencing social capital theory, habitus and cultural capital, we open a discussion on the role of physical, social and symbolic space. The results are based on the technique of walking interviews with small city residents of cities in Poland. The study shows that the basis of learning mechanisms included visiting local authorities, meetings of hobbyists, local urban projects, urban institutions and storytelling city spaces that induced storytelling of the city. The results inform us about the advantages that of elites have in shaping lifelong learning offers. They create their city's narrative of their city by deciding which symbols, people, spaces and institutions are significant. We conclude that the reception of educational content is influenced by the use patterns of use of public spaces. These are culturally and economically determined and can reinforce inequalities in access to learning. However, they still hold there is still great potential for learning in them.

Existing research on the influence of international students on host higher education institutions (HEIs) has mainly focused on revenue diversification and the multicultural environment that students bring to campus. However, there is a significant gap in research on how international students can impact the development of the local community surrounding the host institution. In this paper, we explore the societal impact of international students, beyond the immediate financial benefits associated with their spending. Through interviews with representatives of four HEIs, this study sheds light on the transformative potential of international student mobility for local development in Portugal, especially in more disadvantaged regions. We found that the presence of international students contributes to demographic renewal, economic growth, cultural dynamism, and knowledge transfer, thereby serving as a catalyst for positive societal transformations. These findings accentuate the strategic role of HEIs in fostering regional development through internationalisation efforts, especially valuable for other countries and regions facing similar demographic and economic challenges.

The Spanish PISA 2018 students sample (>35,900 fifteen-year-old students) has been analysed by calculating the Mathematics minus Reading scores of all individuals in the sample, relating this Maths-Reading index to the personal and educational characteristics of the respondents. Results of the first step of the analysis show that the positive Maths-Reading Index values (higher scores in maths than in reading) are mainly related to gender, and negative values (higher scores in reading) are mainly related to the joy of reading and to a series of factors linked to interest and respect for other cultures, among others. Subsequently, the individual level of global performance is taken into account with a cluster analysis generating groups of high, medium and low performers. Changes in factors affecting the Maths-Reading index when this level-based grouping is considered are analysed, showing the importance of grade repetition for low performers and the influence of socio-economic factors for medium performers, while high performers are affected especially by non-cognitive aspects such as self-concept or expected occupational status. Finally, combined effects of gender and level of performance are taken into account, showing that the factors affect male and female students differently for the disparate performance-based groups. This study contributes to a more precise knowledge of the main factors associated with students’ tendency to have better scores in mathematical items than in reading items or vice versa, and to distinguish the differential role of personal and environmental factors not only globally, but also when gender and performance levels are taken into account. Studying this personal tendency is significant as it is related to students’ study choice, especially Science-Technology-Engineering-Mathematics (STEM) degrees.

Research into teacher research has received considerable attention in the last few decades. However, it still remains crucial to examine how teachers understand research and to what extent they engage in it. This study investigated how English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers in Cambodian higher education perceived and engaged in research. The study employed a qualitative case study and collected data through one-on-one semi-structured interviews with 16 EFL teachers from two universities (private, metropolitan, and provincial). Findings based on thematic analysis show that Cambodian university EFL teachers were positive about the value of research, yet their conceptions of research were mixed and contested. Their research engagement was markedly limited and was confined to conducting research to fulfill degree requirements; attending conferences, workshops, or seminars; and supervising students’ research projects. There was almost no involvement in academic publishing due to various challenges to their research engagement endeavors, including time constraints, research knowledge deficiency, lack of funding and support for research, limited social recognition of research, and insufficient sources of research motivation. The participants offered a set of recommendations to improve the overall environment for research to enhance Cambodian EFL teachers’ research engagement. The study concludes with a discussion and policy implications of the findings, as well as suggestions for future research considering the study limitations.