Teacher professional development (TPD) is an important component of enhancing student learning and school education quality. Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training is reforming education, including curricula, teaching methods, and textbooks. Many requirements have to been done to effectively implement the reform, and TPD is considered a significant contribution. Using data from an in-depth interview with the principal, teacher questionnaires, and school policy-related documents, this qualitative case-study research in a selected high school for gifted students in Central Vietnam aimed to find out how TPD had been implemented in response to education reforms in Vietnamese high schools. TPD was widely perceived and respected by the principal and teachers in this case study, and these positive perspectives were transferred into practice with numerous effectively employed TPD strategies at this high school for students’ enhanced learning and achievements.

The purpose of doctoral education is not only to produce a thesis but also to develop graduates who are highly competent in research, publications and the norms and values of being a researcher. Only a handful of studies have examined early-career academics’ perceptions of doing research at the doctoral level. This exploratory qualitative study sought to fill the gap and contribute to understanding of factors contributing to early career academics’ research capability development. Semi-structured interviews were used to explore in-depth the issues concerning research, publication, supervision, and networking among early career academics. The data were collected from 19 early-career academics in the first year of their career, who are attached with different universities and in different disciplines in Malaysia. The findings from the thematic analysis identified that supervision, individual’s participation in scholarly research activities, and institutional formal learning supported the development of the participants’ research capabilities. Although the PhD programme lay emphasis on independent learning, it should be seen as a process that occurs in phases; hence, the research courses offered and support from the supervisor are important to assist the transition to becoming an independent scholar. Based on the findings of the study, it is recommended that universities be more sensitive to the demands and expectations of academic career so that the PhD programmes offered do not merely focus on research but also develop the skills required of future academics at university.

The research delved into the assessment of integrating Learning Management System as an aid in teaching. Data were collected from 26 students at Rizal Technological University-College of Education, Philippines, through pretest-posttest quasi-experimental and normative survey design of research. Data were statistically tested using the frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, t-test for dependent and independent samples, and paired t-test. Results of the research indicate that the respondents have optimistic attitudes towards the integration of learning management system in teaching. The respondents performed poorly in the pretest examination but performed very satisfactorily in the posttest examination. Furthermore, the research found out that there is no significant difference between the performances of the experimental group and control group in pretest and posttest, moreover, there is a significant difference between the pretest and posttest scores of the experimental group and the pretest and posttest scores of the control group.

The purpose of the study was to identify how the instructional model that converges professional training and foreign language learning can influence the students’ professional mobility and students’ readiness to build their careers. The study used the methods of a quantitative kind for the evaluation study and descriptive research. The variables for the study were as follows: levels of student professional mobility skills proficiency that included students’ competence in their professional field, foreign language proficiency, students’ networking skills, personality qualities, and sampled students’ satisfaction with the reshaped course. The field phase of the study found that the Erasmus and Work-and-Travel programmes contributed to the former students’ adaptability and flexibility, the experience of work abroad, and practical specialism-related experience gained during study. The students developed their abilities to project a positive social image, ability to build and maintain relationships, foreign language proficiency, proficiency in presenting and negotiating, and theoretical knowledge. The English Language-delivered Professional Mobility course brought shifts in the levels of students’ professional mobility skills. The experimental group students reported that they improved their competence in their professional field, foreign language proficiency, networking skills, and personality qualities. The experimental group students’ judgements concerning the quality of the course were complimentary.

Understanding phylogenetic trees representing evolutionary relationships of living organisms is essential in school biology. Traditional instructions based on lectures and textbooks with pictorial presentations have been proven ineffective to promote students’ understanding of the concept. This study, therefore, developed a game-based learning activity called the VERT card game to enhance students’ learning of the phylogenetic taxonomy of chordates. The VERT card game was designed to lay the foundation for different characteristics of chordate classes, as well as to allow students to construct and interpret their evolutionary relationships based on the phylogenetic tree. The effectiveness of the VERT card game was verified by a pre-test and post-test design with 109 middle school students in Thailand. The statistical result revealed that students’ mean scores increased significantly in the post-test, compared to the pre-test, indicating their improved understanding. In addition, after participating in the learning activity, the student participants were found to increase their self-efficacy to learn evolutionary biology statistically. Also, it showed positive views towards the usefulness of the developed card game as a large number of them expressed that they would like to use it for their lesson reviews and wished to have this form of learning activity in other topics in biology.

This study aimed to develop a valid and reliable instrument that measures the functional vision of students with low vision. Thus, an assessment tool and performance activities were developed for three vision skill groups (near vision skills, distance vision skills, and visual field) that include functional vision skills. The universe was 1485 students studying in various primary and middle schools (from 2nd to 7th grades) affiliated to the Ministry of National Education, and simple random sampling was used to select 310 students. The data were collected using the Gazi Functional Vision Assessment Instrument developed by the researchers. Many-facet Rasch model and generalizability theory were used for the rater reliability of the measurements obtained from the instrument, while discriminant analysis was used for the validity of the measurements. The analysis showed that the measurements were reliable, and the inferences based on these measurements were valid. Thus, this instrument can be used to identify and assess the functional vision status of students with low vision.

Critical thinking skills are one of the thinking skills needed to live in the 21st century and the era of the Industrial Revolution 4.0. This study aims to develop a Virtual Classroom Critical Thinking (VC2T) Model, which is valid, practical, and effective to improve students' critical thinking skills. VC2T model has six steps: problem orientation, formulation, group discussion, analysis, result discussion, and reflection. This study is a Research & Development (R & D) involving 33 high school students in Surabaya, Indonesia. Before being tested, the VC2T Model was designed based on the theory of Plomp and Nieveen and then validated by 3 (three) experts in physics education. Data were analyzed using validity by experts, implementation of teaching with the VC2T Model, paired t-test, calculation of n-gain, effect size and percentage of student responses. The results showed that the VC2T Model is: (1) valid with an average validity score of 4.14 in the high validity category; (2) practical with an average score of implementations teaching of VC2T Model 4.26 in the outstanding category; and (3) effective as indicated by increasing of students' critical thinking skills scores which are statistically significant at alpha .05, the average n-gain is .38 in the medium category, the effect size of 6.93 is in a strong category and the average students' response is 87.59 % with outstanding category.

In contemporary school systems, the concept of a teacher is defined as a socially and emotionally intelligent, pedagogically, and psychologically competent school leader. This would mean that not only the teacher's subject knowledge is sufficient, but also good knowledge of general pedagogical-psychological skills, knowledge, and management of the didactic approach, etc. Social and emotional skills/intelligence (SEI) restore the value of teachers as creators of learning and connect education to the larger social world in which SEI plays the most important role. This paper highlights the importance of social and Emotional Intelligence (SEI) in teacher education, examining the current state of research and the most important role of SEI in students' personal, social, and academic achievement, as well as teacher effectiveness and personal growth. By presenting the scientific evidence of SEI in teaching and teacher education, this study assesses the SEI level of student teachers at the University of Primorska, Faculty of Education, Slovenia. SEI is examined, through its main components: Self-awareness, Self-management, Social Awareness and Social Skills. In conclusion, this paper aims to show the need to develop SEI in future teacher education in Slovenia.

In recent years, integrating technology into education continues to attract more attention along with the rapid growth of information and communication technology. In the literature, teachers’ technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) plays an essential role in successfully integrating technology into teaching and learning contexts. This study aims to provide a comprehensive view of prior literature and some possible directions for researchers and educators for further TPACK studies. A total of 106 papers were chosen from the Springer database and synthesized. Frequency of annual publications, number of documents with and without TPACK in the title, research methods, number of authors, major contributed countries, most cited papers, and most productive journals in TPACK research were reviewed. The results showed that TPACK has continued to receive attention from researchers in the past decade. Among the reviewed publications, each of the 53 documents included the term TPACK in the title and abstract. To date, qualitative methods were more frequently adopted in TPACK research than quantitative, mixed, and non-empirical methods. Most papers published in TPACK research have two authors. When ranked by country, the US has the highest contribution compared to other countries in this field, followed by Turkey, Australia, Singapore, and Taiwan. The authors with the most cited papers were Min-Hsien Lee and Chin-Chung Tsai with 210 citations. Based on the number of articles published in TPACK, The Asia-Pacific Education Researcher and TechTrends seemed to be the most contributing journal in this field.

The cooperative learning (CL) is an advanced instructional approach that uses different motivational procedures to make instruction significant and learners more responsible. This study aimed to investigate the effects of cooperative learning on students' achievement in chemistry among the advanced level in 12-year basic education schools; it engaged a quasi-experimental design with one treatment group and a comparison group (control); the first applied cooperative learning in teaching organic chemistry while in the control group, organic chemistry was taught by the conventional teaching methods (CTM). A sample of 257 students participated in the study. The data collected used an organic Chemistry Achievement Test, and its data were analyzed using SPSS version 23.0 and MS Excel 2016. The ANCOVA results showed that learners taught using cooperative learning achieved better than their counterparts in the control group (F=78.07, df=1, 256, p<.001) with the learning gains of 16.0% in traditional methods and 53.6% of cooperative learning approach, respectively. However, there was no statistically significant difference in gender of students. It is recommended that chemistry teachers be trained on cooperative learning and encouraged to apply it in their teaching methods to enhance students' academic achievement.

The formed primary level and dynamic and sustainable development of technological competence provides quality management of teaching activities, increases the efficiency of the educational process, accelerates the achievement of pedagogical goals. Delphi expert assessment technique is increasingly used in the paradigm of pedagogy. Due to the set of advantages and objectivity of assessments, it has become the dominant method of this study. The objective of the study is to determine the current level of manifestation of technological competencies, as well as generalized prospects for development and improvement of the identified level within the selected group of freelance teachers using the technology of independent expert assessments –the Delphi method. In general, the following methods were used in the current study: methods of data collection and coordination, anonymous brainstorming, Delphi expert assessment technique, statistical and mathematical processing of results through Delphi formulas, comparative method, generalisations. The diversified approach to the interpretation of the technological competence of faculty members allowed determining: a) the level of faculty members’ knowledge of modern educational technologies at 89.1%; b) activity-practical aspect of training at 83.0%; c) dissonance between the theoretical and empirical level of teacher training and the algorithm for fulfilling the potential in practice at 21.5%; d) mastery of individual creative technologies for the organisation of an effective educational process at 55.9%; e) forecasted development of technological competencies of faculty members in the 5-year perspective under the condition of application of special control and skill trainings at 50.7%. Conclusion of the study is that according to the arithmetic mean of experts’ assessments of differentiated levels of technological competence, the overall level was 75.1%. The average result of the initial student survey on the estimating of the teachers’ technological competence was 69.7%. The difference of 5.4% between the data allows stating that both methods were relevant in this particular case.

This research presents an analysis of the value given to the game as an educational resource on social networks. The purpose of this study is to analyze the discourse on Twitter of the different educational agents (teachers and other educational professionals) to know the value given to the use of this tool and how the social network is an educational form of communication and interaction. From a qualitative methodology, a descriptive-interpretative study of the information on didactic/play strategies present in social networks is approached. The analysis is performed by the Nvivo12 software through matrices and content analysis. The results show that the game is mentioned within the speech on Twitter where it is alluded to its importance, value, application, etc. From an educational perspective, working in the classroom with the use of social networks provides some significant advantages; these networks offer interactive and effective teaching and learning tools. In addition, the integration of tools and applications. It is concluded that Twitter is an educational and formative way and where the value attributed to the game as a didactic resource is significant.

The academic buoyancy scale (ABS) is one of the most widely used instruments for measuring academic buoyancy. To obtain meaningful and valid comparisons across groups using ABS, however, measurement invariance should be ascertained a priori. To that end, we examined its measurement invariance, validity evidence based on relations to other variables, and score reliability using categorical omega across culture and gender among Egyptian and Omani undergraduates. Participants were 345 college students: Egyptian sample (N=191) and Omani sample (N=154). To assess measurement invariance across culture and gender, multiple–group confirmatory factor analysis was performed with four successive invariance models: (a) configural, (b) metric, (c) scalar, and (d) residual. Results revealed that the unidimensional baseline model had adequate fit to the data in the full sample. Moreover, measurement invariance was found to hold across culture but not across gender and consequently the ABS could be used to yield valid cross-cultural comparisons between the Egyptian and Omani students. Conversely, it cannot be used to yield valid inferences related to comparing gender groups within each culture. Validity evidence based on relations to other variables was supported by the significantly moderate correlation between ABS and academic achievement (GPA; r =.435 and r = .457, P < .01) for the Egyptian and Omani samples, respectively. With regard to score reliability, categorical omega coefficients were moderate across both samples. Educational and psychological implications, limitations and suggestions for improving the scale are discussed.

The purposes of this study were to explore factors and indicators of life and career skills and to develop a life and career skills in the 21st century test for undergraduate students. This research employed a mixed-method study adopting an exploratory design: instrument development model to generate research tools. This study was divided into two phases; Phase 1 was to explore factors and indicators of life and career skills in 21st century, by using a qualitative method to analyze relevant documents; Phase 2 was the development of a life and career skills in 21st century test by adopting a quantitative method to collect data from students studying in 12 universities of the north-eastern region of Thailand via the test. In the second phase, the data were analyzed by descriptive statistics and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) Results revealed that the skills consisted of 6 factors and 35 indicators, and the test comprised 105 items. The quality of the test has been examined by five expertise, the reliability of all test items is acceptable, and all 6 factors demonstrated good construct validity. Factor loadings of six factors were 0.7940 -1.7816. This study can be implemented to measure the life and career skills of undergraduate students in any university to obtain data for establishing a policy and plans for maximizing students’ potential to achieve their careers and a happy living in 21st century after their graduation.

We investigate students’ misconceptions in electrostatics, direct current (DC) and magnetism which are important in electricity and magnetism. We developed and administered a multiple-choice questionnaire test to reveal students’ misconceptions related to charged bodies, lightning, electric fields, electric potential, forces, DC resistive electric circuits and magnets. This test aimed at obtaining quantitative information about misconceptions and was administered to 380 senior two students from Nine Year Basic Education (9YBE) Schools. The selected students have some experience with the new Rwandan secondary physics Competence Based Curriculum (CBC) that is currently under implementation. We find that senior two students have several common misconceptions related to these concepts. The data indicate that although students have some backgrounds on the subject matter, they still seem to believe that if the two charges are separated by a distance, a large-charged object exerts a greater force of attraction or repulsion on the small one. Considerable number of participated students held the misconception of considering current consumption in the resistor/bulb or the electrical devices in the circuits. They also believed that the battery was a continuous current source. The findings also revealed that students held a misconception that a bar magnet when broken into pieces, it is demagnetized. Moreover, a considerable number of participants hold the misconception that all metals are attracted by a magnet. Our study also revealed some of the statistically significant differences in terms of either gender or location of schools for some items.

The performance in biology at the secondary level has not been as good as expected. This has been a matter of concern. Thus, there has been a continuous focus on exploring newer innovative learner-centered and friendly instructional strategies to enhance understanding and retention in biology. This study, therefore, determined the effects of Concept Mapping (CM) and Cooperative Mastery Learning (CML) on fostering retention in photosynthesis among secondary schools in Nyamagabe district, Rwanda. A pre-test and post-test non-equivalent control group quasi-experimental design was used. Data were obtained from 151 students taught with CM, 144 students taught with CML, and 154 students taught with Conventional Teaching Methods (CTM). The Photosynthesis Retention Test (KR-21= 0.82) was used for data collection. The data were mainly analyze d using mean and Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA). The results showed that the CM and CML treatment groups outperformed the CTM group in retention in photosynthesis. There was a statistically significant difference in favor of the CM between the two experimental groups. The male and female students taught using CM retained equally in photosynthesis while gender difference was revealed in the mean retention scores of the students exposed to the CML, with females retained significantly higher than males. The study concluded that the CM and CML strategies were more effective than CTM. It was suggested, among other things, that teachers should be encouraged to apply CM and CML strategies when teaching biology.

This study aimed to describe the creative thinking process of students with active learning styles in proposing and solving problems on geometry material. The research instruments were Honey and Mumford's Learning Style Questionnaire (LSQ), problem-solving and submission test sheets, and interview guidelines. The LSQ questionnaire was distributed to students majoring in mathematics education at a university in Malang, Indonesia, with a total of 200 students. Students who have an active learning style and meet the specified criteria will be selected as research subjects. Based on research on creative thinking processes in proposing and solving problems in students with active learning styles, it was found that there were differences in behaviour between subject 1 and subject 2 at each stage of creative thinking. However, based on the researcher's observations of the behaviour of the two subjects at each stage of their thinking, there are similarities in behaviour, namely, they tend to be in a hurry to do something, prefer trial and error, and get ideas based on daily experience.

This study was conducted to corroborate in understanding the teachers’ beliefs about assessment practices. The prior studies related to teachers’ assessment beliefs in mathematics have been done to assess teachers’ beliefs in the general context of mathematics teaching. This study developed an instrument to assess teachers’ assessment beliefs of mathematical thinking. The research aimed to develop and validate a scale of assessment beliefs of mathematical thinking by using the confirmatory factor analysis. The first draft of the scale contained 25 items. The sample of the study consisted of 537 mathematics teachers from public schools in Oman. The instrument was a questionnaire with a 5-point Likert scale. The scale was validated by asking a number of experts in mathematics educational measurement and evaluation. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis was applied to test the model of assessment beliefs of mathematical thinking scale using AMOS 25.0. All constructs had acceptable reliability. The model had a good model fit for the assessment beliefs of mathematical thinking scale which obtainable from the fit indices tests. The findings revealed that all fit criteria indices were realized. The results also showed acceptable validity and construct reliability for the scale.

Literacy ability is an individual's ability to reason, formulate, solve, and interpret mathematically to solve problems related to daily life. Executive function is a cognitive aspect that has a relation with mathematical literacy. One of some aspects that affects the low mathematical literacy ability is the aspect of executive function. This study aims to investigate the characteristics of mathematical literacy based on the executive function aspects of 15 years old students. A qualitative method with a descriptive approach is employed in this study. The present research applies interview guidelines, questionnaires, and students' mathematical literacy tests as the instruments. Research subjects are junior high school students in grade VIII from two different schools. The result shows that the students' executive function influences mathematical literacy ability. Students' mathematical literacy ability is not fully achieved by fulfilling all the indicators involved. Another aspect found in the research is the low critical thinking ability impacts the achievement of mathematical literacy ability indicators.

The current study explored the potential effect of using the flipped class strategy in developing grammatical concepts among fifth-grade primary school students in Irbid, Jordan during the academic year 2019/2020. The study followed the quasi-experimental design, which was applied to a sample of 52 female students, who were divided into a control and an experimental group. The control was taught traditionally and the experimental group was taught grammar through using a flipped classroom strategy respectively. The study developed a list of suitable grammatical concepts for the study sample and a test to measure the Arabic grammatical concepts: declension, case marking, case ending, representation in a sentence, and extraction. After performing the appropriate statistical analysis, the results of the study showed the presence of significant differences between the experimental and the control groups in all grammatical concepts in favor of the experimental group. The researcher recommended applying the flipped class strategy in teaching the grammatical concepts for female fifth graders.