Problem-solving and mathematical communication are essential skills needed by students in learning mathematics. However, empirical evidence reports that students’ skills are less satisfying. Thus, this study aims to improve students’ problem-solving and mathematical communication skills using a Metacognitive-Based Contextual Learning (MBCL) model. A quasi-experimental non-equivalent control group design was used in this study. The participants were 204 fifth-grade students; consisting of experimental (n = 102) and control (n = 102) groups selected using convenience sampling. This study was conducted in four Indonesian elementary schools in the first semester of the academic year 2019/2020. The Problem-Solving Skills Test (PSST) and Mathematical Communication Skills Test (MCST) were used as pre- and post-tests. In order to analyze the data, one-way ANOVA was used at the 0.05 significance level. The results showed that students in the experimental group had higher post-test scores than the control group in terms of problem-solving and mathematical communication skills. It can be concluded that the MBCL effectively promotes fifth-grade students’ problem-solving and mathematical communication skills. Therefore, it is suggested that MBCL should be used more frequently in primary school mathematics to further improve students’ problem-solving and mathematical communication skills.

Self-efficacy and critical thinking represent two vital components for university graduates in the 21st century learning. However, several studies reported that these two important outcome predictors were unsatisfactory. This study aimed at investigating the effects of problem-based learning (PBL) on pre-service teachers’ self-efficacy and critical thinking. A quasi-experimental nonequivalent pretest-posttest control group design was utilized. A total of 44 pre-service elementary school teachers (aged 19-22) at a private university in Indonesia were assigned as experimental (n = 22) and control (n = 22) groups. The experimental group learning received PBL, while the control group learning with traditional college instruction. The Self-Efficacy Scale (SES) and the Critical Thinking Questionnaire (CTQ) were administered before and after the intervention in both groups. Independent and paired samples t-tests were employed to analyze the pretests and posttests data. The results indicated that PBL was more effective in increasing self-efficacy and critical thinking of pre-service elementary teachers than traditional teaching. It is suggested that PBL should be used more frequently in science learning to further enhance students’ self-efficacy and critical thinking skills in higher education.

Social media (SM) use is a rapidly growing phenomenon among Millennials. Thus, a growing body of studies have explored the beneficial applications and negative consequences of their use in an increasingly virtual world. The current study aimed to develop and validate a scale that measures university students’ motives for using SM from a psychological and social perspective. In Study 1 (N = 316), the psychometric properties of SM motives were examined. The estimated factorial structure was validated in Study 2 (N = 200). The Study 1 results showed two active personal motives scales (i.e., self-actualization and purposive motives), one passive motive scale (i.e., enjoyment), one active contextual motive scale (i.e., self-enhancement), and a contextual (neither active nor passive) motive scale (i.e., a factor of convenience). Study 2 findings confirmed this factorial structure. Construct validity was supported with significant differences between three types of users (i.e., productive, consuming, and disinterested) on their motives (151 words).

This study aims to design mathematical literacy instruments that have evidence of content and construct validity and are reliable for use as an Assessment for Learning. The research involved eight experts as instrument validators and 273 eighth-grade students of junior high school in Yogyakarta Province. The results showed that the ten mathematical literacy items developed had the V Aiken coefficient index calculated from 0.781 to 0.906 (> 0.75). The results of adequacy testing of samples with KMO and Bartlett show Chi-Square in the Bartlett test of 608,608, the p-value <0.05 and KMO value of 0.781 (> 0.5). The results of testing of the measurement model with Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) produce a Root Mean Square Error of Approach (RMSEA) value of 0.049 (≤ 0.08), chi-s Square of 33.92 (<2df), the p-value of 0.05004 (≥ 0.05). Nine out of the ten items developed had t-value> 1.96, Standardized Loading Factor (SLF) was greater than the critical limit (> 0.3), and Construct Reliability (CR) of 0.78 (> 0.7). It can be concluded that the developed mathematical literacy instrument can measure what must be measured and nine items significantly reflect the construct or latent variable, as well as the level of consistency of a good score.

Investigating critical incidents is one way to assist prospective teachers in expressing any developmental stage when accomplishing the teaching practice program. It is a significant component of reflective teaching in an educational framework related to continuing professional development (CPD), particularly self-directed learning. This study aims at exploring EFL prospective teachers’ field experience in cultivating their teaching competence through a critical incident analysis. A qualitative approach was applied. Three participants with different levels of English proficiency took part in this study by sharing their experiences through participating in and answering an interview and an opinionnaire. To analyze the data from the instruments, this study used descriptive analysis and coding techniques respectively. Results indicate that both negative and positive critical incidents contribute to the participants’ teaching development. The incidents support the learning process towards becoming a teacher and assist shaping their awareness of teacher identity. Further, the result of this study reveals that English proficiency level seems to take part in the strategy used for identifying critical incidents. This study implies that critical incidents provide a chance for prospective teachers to be more reflective. Thus, teacher education program stakeholders need to support critical incident analysis by giving relevant assignments while they are doing teaching practice, which in turn builds professional development in the context of prospective teachers.

Some evaluation has been carried out in Vocational High Schools (VHSs), but most of it focuses on the documents or passive data rather than the processes happening in VHSs. Thus, this research focuses on the evaluation of VHS performances where the process is initiated with identifying the constructs and developing the instruments of performance evaluation for VHSs with Technology and Engineering expertise programs. Based on the problems found in the field, before conducting the evaluation, the researcher needs to, at first, develop the instrument of evaluation through three stages of development. The first stage is analyzing the concepts related to the evaluation by examining the factors affecting VHS performances. In the second stage, instrument development and instrument analysis (content validation) are conducted with the help of experts. The third stage is performance evaluation in VHSs located in Yogyakarta. The evaluation employs a set of instruments developed by the researchers. This research has produced a set of instruments for performance evaluation, which can be used extensively in VHSs. Based on the evaluation, it is found that the aspects of general management and academic management of the VHSs being studied are considered “Good”.

Covid-19 has accelerated the speed of technocratic transformation in teaching and learning. Previous researches on whether technology enhances students’ motivation towards learning or burdens them with additional layer of anxiety in learning the nitty gritty of technology itself have mixed results. The purpose of this study was to explore early undergraduate students’ beliefs about learning mathematics with technology. These research participants were first-year female undergraduate students in a public university in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The study comprised of phase one with qualitative task-based interviews with four female first-year undergraduate students. Phase two included a quantitative belief survey with a sample of 62 students from the same institution. I constructed four major belief categories from the iterative process of interview data analysis– technology for computing and graphing, technology for speed and accuracy, technology for a short-cut but not for meaning, and affective aspects of beliefs. The quantitative survey result demonstrated that a majority of participants (about 75.8%) were found to be using some kinds of technological tools while learning mathematics. About 90% of them reported using a calculator while learning mathematics. A majority of participants (54.9%) believed that technology helps them in learning mathematics, and about 50% of them also believed that the use of technology improves their learning of mathematics.

Environmental learning in the 21st century requires a high level of thinking ability, especially to solve environmental problems when COVID-19 pandemic. This was to develop a new level of thinking, namely Higher Order Thinking Skills of Environmental Problem (HOTSEP) which is a revision of Anderson's Taxonomy. The purpose of this study was to measure students HOTSEP in the context of environmental problems related to COVID-19. The research method used in this research was descriptive. The sample used 277 university students from several cities in Indonesia. The instrument used HOTSEP which has 3 categories of thinking level start from develop innovation about environment (C6), solve environmental problem (C5), criticize environmental problem (C4). The results showed that students HOTSEP were still in the very low category (33.64). This study concludes that the HOTSEP of students was still low and needs to be improved to the understanding of COVID-19 concept in environmental learning. Suggestion for further research was HOTSEP need to implement in school or university for several environmental learning topics in many subjects/courses start from Natural Science, Social Science, Engineering, and others relevant subject. HOTSEP can be measured not only in school or university, HOTSEP can be implement in community and public.

The development of information technology rapidly has an impact on the changing paradigm of education. On the other hand, education holds an important responsibility to create students who have a good and strong character. This research aims to: 1) describe the concept and framework of interactive multimedia courseware; 2) test the feasibility of interactive multimedia courseware by experts and practitioners; 3) test student responses to the use of interactive multimedia courseware. This research and development involved experts, teachers, and students. The data were collected using expert validation sheets, teacher questionnaires, and student questionnaires. They were then analyzed using the descriptive statistics analysis based on mean and percentage. This research yielded interactive multimedia courseware called IMONEC (Interactive Multimedia courseware integrated with Bandura’s Observational learning model and National historical Event to strengthen students' Character) that integrates three important components: the principles of interactive multimedia learning; Bandura's observational learning model; and the noble values and messages of national historical events to strengthen students' characters. The framework of the interactive multimedia courseware consists of the title, user instruction, home, core competency and basic competency, concept map of material, learning material, and quizzes. The results of the expert validation, teacher questionnaire, and student questionnaire showed that the interactive multimedia courseware is feasible for use in learning and effective in strengthening students’ characters.

The purpose of the study was to explore how technological advances incorporated into the Philology Studies curriculum could impact the students’ research skills and the quality of their research projects and what students’ and teachers’ impressions of the reshaped research component of the curriculum were. The study used qualitative and quantitative methods with the dominance of qualitative methods. It employed the baseline study, checklist to assess students’ research papers, assessment criteria, and the Triangular Assessment Method to assess the students’ papers. The consensus meeting was held to allow the experts to express their reasoning for the scores. The semi-structured interview was administered to the students’ and teachers’ to identify their impressions of the reshaped research component of the curriculum of philology. The technological advances incorporated into Philology Studies curriculum improve the students’ research skills and the quality of their research projects. Both students and teachers appreciated the reshaped research component of the curriculum. The analytical software can be successfully incorporated in the corpus analysis-purpose student research. The students found the intervention a challenging experience that ‘pumped up’ their intellectual, research, and technical skills. They reported improvement in interpreting corpus using correlations, frequencies, distributions, and collecting information using software to organise it in a professional way. The lecturers agreed that the technology-based instructional model incorporated into Philology Studies curriculum improved both students’ research skills and the quality of their research projects.

Owing to the rapid expansion and development of newly upgraded undergraduate colleges and universities in China, the Ministry of Education implemented the College English Language Teaching Reform (CELTR) to improve College English language teaching and learning at higher institutions. This reform aims to improve the quality of teaching and learning of English as a Foreign Language (EFL). The present study aims to identify potential factors influencing the EFL teachers’ professional development in the context of the College English language curriculum reform in mainland China. In total, 92 EFL college teachers from a newly upgraded university located in Nanyang City, Central China participated in this study, and data were collected using a survey questionnaire. Overall, the findings indicate that the EFL teachers’ professional development improved during the implementation process of CELTR and the potential factors that contributed to their professional development were teachers’ understanding, self-reflection, and teaching practice.

Current research on self-efficacy beliefs of interdisciplinary science teaching indicates shortcomings in facing recent teaching challenges in secondary education and corresponding valid instruments. Thus, we designed the Self-Efficacy Beliefs of Interdisciplinary Science Teaching (SElf-ST) instrument based on a pedagogical content knowledge model for science teaching. We ensured the factorial validity of ten factors. To bring construct validity down to a round figure, we examined convergent and divergent validity in this paper. For answering the overall research question regarding arguments for the convergent and divergent validity of the interpretation of the SElf-ST instrument’s test values (and related hypotheses), we analyzed data of pre-service, trainee, and in-service biology, chemistry, and physics teachers (n = 590) in a cross-sectional study. While the strong latent correlations of the ten SElf-ST factors with self-efficacy beliefs of interdisciplinary science teaching in primary education (r = 0.40 – 0.63, p < 0.01) indicate convergent validity, the rather weak correlations with self-efficacy beliefs of general teaching (r = 0.17 – 0.54, p < 0.01), self-rated content knowledge in science (r = 0.13 – 0.40, p < 0.01), and perceived stress (r = -0.13 – -0.19, p < 0.01) support different divergent validity intensities. Thus, assumed relations within the nomological net surrounding the self-efficacy beliefs of interdisciplinary science teaching construct were confirmed for secondary education. In sum, we shed light on a rarely explored aspect of construct validity in science education research regarding self-efficacy beliefs. Doing so, we gained strong arguments that the SElf-ST instrument’s test values can serve as indicators of self-efficacy beliefs of interdisciplinary science teaching in secondary education.

This study aimed at analyzing the implementation of authentic assessments and constraints faced by junior high schools' teachers in mathematics teaching. A qualitative approach was applied in the study. The data on the implementation of authentic assessments and constraints were obtained from 50 mathematics teachers in several public junior high schools in Malang City, East Java Province-Indonesia, trained by the 2013 curriculum. Documentation, questionnaires, observations, and interviews were used to collect the data. The study results showed that most teachers implemented authentic assessments in mathematics teaching as designed in the learning plan. The obstacles faced by the teachers in the implementation of the authentic assessment included the time limit and accuracy. The efforts made by the teachers varied, but the teachers tried to administer the authentic assessment properly following the demands of the curriculum.

This longitudinal study focuses on evaluating grade 7-9 school students’ perceptions of intervention modules intended to be relevant, as well as promoting learning attributes to raise awareness of science-related careers. Students are taught through six purposely developed and designed career-related teaching–learning modules (C-TLMs). Each module is initiated by means of a career-related scenario, followed up by promoting conceptual science learning plus drawing attention to careers to which each module intends to relate. Student perceptions are obtained by means of a questionnaire after each module with respect to its relevance and also the mean by which the learning environment raise interest, enjoyment and motivation associated with career awareness. Outcomes show that, in general, students participating in this study agree that the developed C-TLMs are relevant and students value the learning experienced through the different module contexts. Nevertheless, student appreciation of the specific inclusion of career awareness components in the modules is mixed.

The objectives of this research included to study the effects of democratic parenting and teaching activities on global citizenship according to logical reasoning in making decisions on political attitudes among 2,286 students from 80 classrooms. The research instruments included 1) a set of rating- scale questionnaires for students with 92 items, having the reliability as 0.968 and 2) a set of rating- scale questionnaires for teachers with 23 items, having the reliability as 0.893. The results of the multilevel structural equation model analysis revealed that the factor of political attitudes was the most important in describing each student's global citizenship with the explanation of the variance with democratic parenting and the analysis of applying the reasons in students’ decisions was as 68.50%. Teaching activities affected positively on global citizenship both directly and indirectly through statistically significant factors with and together explained the variance of the global citizenship of each student by 84.00%. These findings highlight the importance of developing and fostering political attitudes that affect students' global citizenship through parenting and teaching activities covering the development of relevant factors as discussed in the Discussion and Implementation Part.

The constraints of history learning in the Indonesia curriculum are the weekly time is only one hour of lessons and the material is quite dense, if delivered with an explanation and discussion the time is not enough. Therefore, it was sought how to get all material delivered and students not bored. Learning this model is done to condition students as a center of learning, increase creativity and learning outcomes, the project undertaken is called the MANSA Historical board game (MANSA is taken from the abbreviation of our school name). In this case, students are asked to create, design their own board game on a different topic for each group. This study aims to determine the differences in learning outcomes and creativity between the control class and the experimental class of students at senior high schools in Salatiga, Indonesia. The research model used is quasi-experimental. The respondents of the research were 35 students in the experimental class and 35 students in the control class, who had the same homogeneity in creativity and learning outcomes. The results showed that the MANSA Historical board game had a significant effect on creativity and student learning outcomes. It is proven that creativity and student-learning outcomes can be increased. As shown by the mean different test results, there was a difference in the creativity of 0.593 and a learning outcome of 4.224 between the control class and the experimental class before and after treatment. The results showed a difference in learning outcomes between the control class and the experimental class. The average learning outcomes of the experimental class are higher than the average learning outcomes of the control class, as well as student creativity.

This research aimed to develop a web-based application for teacher candidate competence instruments to prepare professional teachers in the Industrial Revolution 4.0 (IR 4.0) era. Teacher candidate competencies consist of pedagogical, professional, social, and personality competences. This is a research and development with 8 stages, involving the development of instrument grids/ construct, focus group discussions, instrument item development, instrument validation, manual instrument testing, application development, application assessment by experts, application trial, and final revision of the application. The initial focus group discussions involved 9 experts, while the instrument validation involved 35 experts consisting of 21 experts for pedagogical and professional competences, 7 experts for social competences, 7 experts for the personality competences, and 4 media experts. The trial involved a total of 107 Mathematics, Indonesian, and English student teacher candidates. Expert validation was analyzed using the Aiken formula; application effectiveness and readability were described based on expert judgment, and discrimination tests on the results of social and personality competence tests between the study programs used the Multivariate Analysis of Variants. The results showed that there were no differences in social and personality competences between Mathematics, Indonesian, and English prospective teachers. The developed instruments for pedagogical, professional, personality, and social competences were deemed valid. The application has met the readability aspect and is scored well by experts with an average assessment rating of  .78. These results suggest that the application can be used by the government as a solution to assess teacher candidate competences in the IR 4.0 era.

Boarding schools are the common ‘out-of-home’ placements for adolescents, due to various historical, religiously orthodox, and traditional reasons and due to dysfunction within families. The purpose of the current study is to examine the relationship between a free versus an enforced decision to enroll in a boarding school in terms of personal well-being among emancipated graduates. Ninety alumni graduates (aged range 20-41) of out-of- home boarding schools in Israel were recruited during 2019. Participants were administered a self-report anonymous questionnaire consisting of the following measures: Free versus enforced decision to enroll in a boarding school, retrospective satisfaction with the boarding school, personal well-being and traumatic events. Results indicated that a free decision to enroll in an out-of-home boarding school was associated with current satisfaction with social relationships but not with quality of life. Additionally, the longer the period spent in a boarding school, the higher was the satisfaction from the period at school. Older graduates reported less satisfaction from school retrospectively. It was concluded that involving the adolescent in life changing decisions such as leaving home to a boarding school is likely to influence the person's well-being during and after emancipation.

This paper adds to writing to learn research by reporting on empirical and conceptual studies on the subject matter but also by speculating on the learning virtues that writing offers besides its function as an assessment tool, namely that it can provide students with an adequate avenue to reflect on their learning. For this purpose, I reviewed 17 studies spanning a 17-year period (2004-2020) and representing both the L1 and L2 contexts. Reviewed studies examined writing to learn in different disciplines and grade levels across countries, including the US, Canada, Turkey, Norway, Spain etc. Later in this paper, I set out to elaborate on thematic patterns if these existed and identify areas where further research may be warranted. Findings indicated that writing to learn is an effective instructional strategy across different grade-levels and disciplines both in the L1 and L2 teaching and learning contexts. Finally, this paper overviews relevant pedagogical implications and future research directions.

This study aims to determine the effectiveness of the IPA KIT teaching aids for earthquakes science KIT in improving students' collaboration skills and creative thinking. The design of this research is a quasi-experimental research with a stratified random sampling technique. This study involved two classes, namely the experimental class (n = 32) and the control class (n = 33) with a pretest-posttest control group design. This research was conducted at SMP Negeri 5 Depok. The statistical analysis used to test the research hypothesis based on the pretest and posttest scores is the normality test, linearity test, homogeneity test, correlation test, effect size, and MANOVA test. The results showed that the use of IPA KIT teaching aids for earthquakes was more effective in improving students' creative thinking skills and collaboration. Therefore, teachers are advised to use the earthquake science KIT teaching aids for earthquakes to improve the creative thinking skills and collaboration of junior high school students.