The Asia-Pacific Education Researcher最新文献

Emotions can influence online teaching and learning, according to existing studies. PERMA theory enjoys great fame in both positive psychology field and English foreign language context since it was proposed by Seligman, which includes five domains, namely positive emotions, engagement, relationship, meaning, and achievement. Although there is a wealth of knowledge about the impact of positive emotion on teaching and learning, there is little research on the PERMA model within positive psychology and online EFL teaching and learning, particularly examining the specific framework that can effectively guide online teaching and learning. In this article, based on the community of inquiry theoretical framework, we provide empirical evidence that emotional presence (PERMA) may exist as an essential and distinct part of online critical inquiry. Results also supported PERMA mediated the linear relationship between social presence and cognitive presence; also, mediated the linear relationship between teaching presence and cognitive presence. The current research provides evidence for the association between the PERMA model in positive psychology and online critical inquiry; as well as contributes to uncovering the underlying mechanisms of the relationship between the PERMA model and community of inquiry theoretical framework.

Teachers differ in the extent to which they support their students’ basic psychological needs. To better understand these differences, we investigated how mindsets and motivation to teach English relate to their need-supportive teaching practices. Data was gathered from 348 EFL instructors (261 female, 87 male; M_age = 38.47, SD = 9.22) working at state and private universities in Turkey through the following self-report questionnaires: the Implicit Theories of Intelligence Scale (ITIS; Dweck et al., 1995), the Comprehensive Relative Autonomy Index (C-RAI; Sheldon et al., 2017), and the Teacher as a Social Context Questionnaire (TASC-Q; Belmont et al., 1988). Results of structural equation modeling revealed that language instructors’ fixed teaching mindset beliefs had both direct and indirect relationships with their need-supportive teaching through quality of teaching motivation. The direct relationships suggest that instructors who believe their teaching ability is a fixed trait are less likely to teach for autonomous reasons, such as personal interest and values, and more inclined to teach out of external reasons, such as pressure from supervisors. The indirect relationships suggest that autonomous teaching motivation mediates the negative relationships between fixed teaching mindset and provision of involvement and structure. These findings highlight the important role of teaching mindsets and motivation in promoting need-supportive learning environments.

The aim of this study was to explore how first-time problem-based learning (PBL) participants can improve their learning outcomes. Empirical results showed that students with higher academic performance and attendance rates significantly enhanced their critical thinking and problem-solving skills through PBL compared to traditional lecture-based methods. However, PBL was less effective for students with lower academic performance or attendance rates compared to traditional lectures, highlighting the impact of student characteristics on PBL outcomes. Tutors should focus on students with lower academic or attendance rates, encouraging their active participation to improve overall learning outcomes. Results of path model analysis revealed that tutor performance significantly influences both the learning process and the development of critical thinking and problem-solving skills. Self-directed learning greatly influences critical thinking, while the functionality of tutorial groups significantly affects problem-solving skills. These findings emphasized the importance of tutor performance in enhancing the learning outcomes of students new to PBL. Therefore, educational institutions should invest in PBL teaching seminars to boost tutor performance and ultimately improve student learning outcomes.

Problem based learning (PBL) has great potential to enhance learning outcomes and this potential has been investigated and proved in different disciplines by many meta-analysis studies. However, there are not any meta-analysis studies aiming to investigate the effectiveness of problem based learning in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classrooms which is an important gap that needs to be filled. Therefore, this meta-analysis study aimed to investigate the overall effect size of PBL on achievement in EFL classrooms and to examine the possible moderator variables that might be effective on this overall effect size. Along with this aim, the studies investigating the effect of PBL on academic achievement in EFL classrooms are included and analyses were carried out with 41 data (extracted from 36 unique studies). Investigation of publication bias using various methods showed that there is no publication bias. This study showed that the effect size of PBL is 1.067 indicating a large effect which means that PBL is highly effective to enhance the language achievement of students in EFL classrooms. Moderator analyses showed that language skill is a real moderator on the effect size of PBL on EFL success while the study group, treatment duration, location of study, learning environment, and document type are not real moderators.