This research is motivated by a linear equations system, which is the basis for studying necessary linear algebra materials, such as rank, range, linear independent/dependent, linear transformations, characteristic values and vectors. There are still prospective mathematics teachers who have difficulty solving linear equations system and understanding the form of row echelon and reduced row echelon forms. In this study, subjects were three prospective mathematics teachers from Swadaya Gunung Jati University Cirebon who were taking matrix algebra courses. This study aims to reveal the conceptual understanding of prospective mathematics teachers in determining the solution to systems of linear equations. The results show that there are still prospective mathematics teachers who only use memory about the properties and procedures in determining whether a matrix is said to be a row echelon form or a reduced row echelon form. Then, there is still weakness in building the algorithms' relationship due to the immature knowledge of the concepts. Researchers found that many prospective mathematics teachers were more comfortable solving problems that were performed procedurally. Further research is needed to determine how the mental construction process and mathematical conceptual knowledge of prospective mathematics teachers are through meaningful learning so that conceptual understanding is maximized.

A large number of articles in the field of science education reflect on scientific literacy as the main goal of science education (SE), although often with varying viewpoints. Nevertheless, researchers have begun to highlight subject-specific teaching practices that are expected to specifically enhance science subject teaching, including biology. The main aim of this theoretical article is to come on consensus and to conceptualise the term biological literacy (BL) more clearly and to present a theoretical concept of BL, composed on the basis of systematically analysed articles. This theoretical concept includes two dimensions of BL: (1) cognitive (cognitive skills, conceptual understanding, biological inquiry) and (2) affective dimension, based on systematic literature review (SLR). This theoretical concept also includes in addition four dimensions of BL: (3) sustainability; (4) interdisciplinarity, (5) career awareness and (6) nature of biology (NOB), based on literature review (LR) of recent decades, that was conducted to write theoretical overview of this research.

This study aimed to investigate the mediation role of coping with stress between psychological capital and teacher well-being based on positive psychology, conservation resource, and broaden-and-build theories. Participants in this study were 836 teachers from three clustered, ethnically diverse public universities. Our findings showed that, in line with previous studies, the psychological capital (PsyCap), coping with stress (CWS), and teacher well-being (TWB) dimensions showed the best fit in our data. PsyCap was related positively to TWB (total and dimensions), CWS, coping through withdrawal, and negative coping with acceptance and change. The indirect effect of PsyCap on TWB through coping with stress was fully mediated. PsyCap also positively and directly affected TWB and CWS. Coping through acceptance and change were fully mediated by PsyCap and TWB dimensions, while coping through withdrawal was not. PsyCap directly and positively affected coping with stress (acceptance and change) and negatively affected coping through withdrawal. Future theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Teaching mathematics in general and instructing mathematics at junior schools in particular not only create favorable conditions for students to develop essential and core competencies but also help students enhance mathematical competencies as a foundation for a good study of the subject and promote essential skills for society, in which mathematical communication skill is an important one. This study aimed to train students in mathematics communication by presenting them with topics in line with the structure's congruent triangles. An experimental sample of 40 students in grade 8 at a junior school in Vietnam, in which they were engaged in learning with activities oriented to increase mathematical communication. A research design employing a pre-test, an intervention, and a post-test was implemented to evaluate such a teaching methodology's effectiveness. For assessing how well the students had progressed in mathematical language activities, the gathered data were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. Empirical results showed that most students experienced a significant improvement in their mathematical communication skills associated with congruent triangles. Additionally, there were some significant implications and recommendations that were drawn from the research results.

This study aims to present the potential of Participatory Action Research (PAR) to bring together the experiences of teachers and researchers with the intention of improving teaching practices and students’ learning outcomes. Participants in the study were 7 teachers, their 160 fifths grade students, and researchers (authors). Teachers and researchers participated as partners in all collaborative activities during the period of 12 weeks.  All teachers assisted by the researcher (first author) who serves as a teacher at the same school, were involved in implementing the reciprocal teaching method (RTM) in math classes. They examined each step of the implementation of this method in order to investigate whether it has an impact on student achievement in solving mathematical word problems. Teachers observed the work of students in their classes, whereas in the joint meetings they discussed occasional ambiguities as well as issues that were most challenging for them and their students. The results showed that there was a significant improvement of the students’ results in the post-test of the mathematical word problems. The analysis of teachers' reflections highlights the benefits of collaboration within the PAR project, both for students and teachers. The study suggests that the PAR model can be used effectively within school settings as a research model, and as a pedagogical practice.

Citizenship education has been recognised as a desirable attribute of students both by the educational system and Sultan Qaboos University in Oman. The aims of citizenship education will be difficult to achieve unless teacher educators incorporate citizenship education as a main outcome of their courses. Yet, that mainly depends on their understanding of the meaning of citizenship and what the component is that they ought to develop. The current article aims to analyse the perceptions of teacher educators about citizenship and their related teaching practices. Study adopted a qualitative method to collect the data by interviewing five teacher educators from college of education, Sultan Qaboos University. The findings showed that those educators associated citizenship with patriotism and a personally responsible vision of citizenship. In addition, they reported limited practices pertinent to citizenship education and clearly expressed their need for professional development in citizenship education.  

Assessment is a topic that continues to be developed in science education research. Assessment evaluates not only students' cognitive abilities but also their thinking skills. Therefore, in this study, an assessment that could measure students' chemical literacy was developed. Chemical literacy is a thinking skill that students must develop as part of their chemistry learning. The goal of this study was to assess item' quality, as well as student’ chemical literacy on the concept of chemical rate. The Rasch model was employed to analyze the data in this study. The results of this study depict that the developed assessment had sufficient reliability and validity to be used to assess students' chemical literacy. Furthermore, the analysis of the students’ responses to the items revealed that many students did not understand or were unaware of the context presented. These findings suggest that students' chemical literacy in the material for the reaction rate is still lacking and needs to be improved. As a result, the teacher's role in assisting students in improving their chemical literacy through chemistry learning is critical.

The research aims to develop an instructional tool based on Discovery Learning (DL) combined with a Metacognitive Knowledge Strategy (MKS) to enhance students’ Critical Thinking Skills (CTSs). In doing so, the study employed a Research and Development (R&D) method to develop such a tool. The developed instructional tool was tested for its validity by experts and practitioners’ evaluation. Further, the empirical data were collected from the results of implementation in learning and the student's responses, while the data of tools effectiveness were acquired from the critical thinking tests given to students (analyzed by related t-test). The developed instructional tools were implemented in a limited-scale trial of 32 students and a large-scale trial of 59 students. The results show that: firstly, the DL and MKS-integrated instructional tools are stated as valid in terms of the lesson plan, student worksheet, and critical thinking test. Secondly, the practicality criteria have been successfully met; the learning implementation, students’ activity, and students' responses were regarded as in accordance with the feasibility standard. Thirdly, the instructional tool was deemed effective in enhancing students’ CTSs (p = 0.05).

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.

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.

Measuring accounting teachers’ professional identity is significant to do as an alternative to measure the professionalism of accounting teachers in Indonesia based on their professional identity. This research was conducted in two stages of exploratory factor analysis involving 150 accounting teachers as sample in each stage. The data were collected in collaboration with an accounting teacher organization, comprising the Accounting Subject Teacher Deliberation (MGMP) in Central Java through a questionnaire. Data analysis was divided into several steps including face validity and content validity, inter-item correlation matrix, and exploratory factor analysis. The results showed that 23 question items encompassed five components of accounting teacher professional identity; Cultural Knowledge (pedagogical cultural identity), Blending (accommodating students' purposes for school in the learning objectives), Identity Experiencing (by the experience of working life in the past, present, and individual expectations in the future in accounting work setting), Inter-Personal Skill, and Active in Professional Communities. The scale development requires continuous development tailing various new findings in the teacher professional identity and accountant professional identity.

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 is an endeavour to explicate the dissonance of the linguistic quality outcome of study abroad (SA) experiences by exploring the second language (L2) motivation of six academic sojourners in Manchester. A person-in-context approach revealed that developing intimate relationships with ‘native-speakers’, providing L2-mediated interaction opportunities with international students, and social approval were key determinants of the extent to which SA students were invested in social practices. Such social engagements were found to stem from second language motivation that is part of identity construction process. In addition, the thematic analysis of the narrative inquiries suggests that the global status of the English language defies the traditional conceptualisations of L2 motivation as most participants’ motivations were formed despite their negative or neutral attitudes towards the English community. The findings also endorse the role of the other as a robust motivational source by which learners can replenish their motivation stream, leading to social identity investment to construct their ideological selves. The paper concludes with a recommendation to re-interpret the conceptualisation of the Ideal L2 Self system because ‘native-speakers’ are rarely the closest parallels to L2 learners, and it should incorporate explicit intrinsic orientations. Furthermore, language institutions in SA contexts should direct their focus on establishing conversation clubs and hosting social events for SA students to provide a safe space for their identities to be developed, enacted and reconstructed.

Scientific culture has been a concern for decades in the developed world, giving rise to conceptual changes known as paradigms. The first one is the longstanding literacy paradigm, defined by the skills and knowledge acquired at the education institution. It has been followed by the public understanding of science paradigm, related to the scientific understanding and an allegedly subsequent positive attitude towards science. Lastly, the engagement with science paradigm or science and society paradigm involves people's implications about the science-technology controversies with significant social impact. This article reflects how science teaching has evolved along the years in line with the scientific culture's conceptual shifts. It is concluded that this triad of paradigms is thus of a school nature, given that educational fields have suffered from transformation processes under the same vision of the world (world view), which has also changed the concept of scientific culture. Individuals in a research community learn ways of thinking, feeling and acting and therefore cannot help feeling a liking for what is short-lived and has not taken roots, both inside and outside the school in our postmodern age

Despite the ubiquity of professional learning communities (PLCs) among researchers, studies on PLCs have widely differed in terms of dimensions used to conceptualise them. Thus, the study aimed to validate the conceptual model consisting of PLCs practices. The study employed a quantitative method using a survey. Firstly, a pilot test was conducted in which 103 school-teachers were involved in completing a questionnaire. The Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) had determined six dimensions and 20 elements of PLCs practices. Then, the field study was conducted using the new questionnaire. The survey involved 386 school-teachers from 25 High Performing Schools (HPS). The result revealed that: I) Based on the Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), multidimensional PLCs practice model is evidence in the Malaysian context. They are operationalised in six dimensions including visions, missions and values, professional leadership, collective and collaborative culture, sharing of best practices, conducive school climate, and strategic alliances among stakeholders and, ii) The level of PLCs implementation in HPS is high for all the dimensions. The practical implications from the study and future research recommendations were also discussed.

Realistic Mathematics Education (RME) has gained popularity worldwide to teach mathematics using real-world problems. This study investigates the effectiveness of elliptic topics taught to 10th graders in a Vietnamese high school and students' attitudes toward learning. The RME model was used to guide 45 students in an experimental class, while the conventional model was applied to instruct 42 students in the control class. Data collection methods included observation, pre-test, post-test, and a student opinion survey. The experimental results confirm the test results, and the experimental class's learning outcomes were significantly higher than that of the control class's students. Besides, student participation in learning activities and attitudes toward learning were significantly higher in the RME model class than in the control class. Students will construct their mathematical knowledge based on real-life situations. The organization of teaching according to RME is not only a new method of teaching but innovation in thinking about teaching mathematics.

Students drop out of schools for many reasons, and it has negative effects on the individual and society. This paper reports a study using data published in 2015 from the Educational Longitudinal Study conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics to analyze the influence of parental involvement on low-achieving U.S. students’ graduation rates from high school. Findings indicate that both students and parents share the same perspective on the need for parental involvement in their academic progress. For low-achieving high school students, parental involvement in academic work is a positive factor influencing students’ graduation from high school.

For biology students, the diversity, complexity, and abundance of content in this field yield a heavy study load. Hence, appropriate learning strategies are key in supporting learners’ academic success. In biology, the factors gender and interest hold a unique position within the natural sciences, as there is an academic imbalance to the disadvantage of male students. In the present study, we examined the influence of gender and interest as well as its interdependences on the students’ use of learning strategies for biology learning. A total of 180 seventh through tenth grade students (Mage=14.47; SD=1.35; 60% female) from four general-track secondary schools located in Germany participated in this study. Data on the students’ level of interest and the use of learning strategies in biology lessons were collected. We used multivariate analysis of covariance with the students’ age as the covariate to analyse our data. Results revealed a significant effect of gender on the students’ use of the learning strategies rehearsal, organisation, effort, and time management. With regard to elaboration and effort, the effects of interest were found to be significant. The gender gap regarding learning strategy use was narrower for students with high levels of interest. These findings might have implications for beneficial teacher behaviour in biology.

Research on instructional quality has been of great interest for several decades, leading to an immense and diverse body of literature. However, due to different definitions and operationalisations, the picture of what characteristics are important for instructional quality is not entirely clear. Therefore, in this paper, a scoping review was performed to provide an overview of existing evidence of both generic and subject-didactic characteristics with regard to student performance. More precisely, this paper aims to (a) identify both generic and subject-didactic characteristics affecting student performance in mathematics in secondary school, (b) cluster these characteristics into categories to show areas for quality teaching, and (c) analyse and assess the effects of these characteristics on student performance to rate the scientific evidence in the context of the articles considered. The results reveal that teaching characteristics, and not just the instruments for recording the quality of teaching as described in previous research, can be placed on a continuum ranging from generic to subject-didactic. Moreover, on account of the inconsistent definition of subject-didactic characteristics, the category of ‘subject-didactic specifics’ needs further development to establish it as a separate category in empirical research. Finally, this study represents a further step toward understanding the effects of teaching characteristics on student performance by providing an overview of teaching characteristics and their effects and evidence.