Despite its well-documented benefits for training a wide range of professionals, including teacher candidates in almost all content areas, the incorporation of service-learning into foreign language teacher education is relatively new, and most research only dealt with narrative accounts of non-work-related charitable activities. Consequently, this study sought to investigate the impact of the 20-hour peer-tutoring project on the teaching beliefs, community service attitudes, personal and professional development of 14 Turkish EFL teacher candidates. A comparison between their pre- and post-service metaphors revealed a conceptual shift not only in their teaching perspectives from the behaviorist to constructivist paradigm for knowledge acquisition, but also in their community partnership approaches from the unidirectional to reciprocal pattern of altruism towards their tutees. The classification of their written reflections into six types of significant learning demonstrated that despite a relatively greater focus on expressing their foundational knowledge and application practices, a more balanced distribution of learning gains was achieved between the two overarching spheres of academic learning and personal growth, when coursework engagement and multimodal reflections were co-implemented. They reported developing effective teacher dispositions, interpersonal skills and social responsibility, valued intrinsic rewards for their contributions to the youth well-being, and also appreciated the informal professional learning opportunities the peer-tutoring service offered, though without establishing their own learning agendas.

Summative assessment of students' writing predicts not only the extent to which the course learning objectives have been achieved but also reveals the relevance of the assessment design with the construct of writing being assessed. Any dichotomy between the assessment criteria and the construct of writing or between the assessment criteria and test scoring procedures can produce unreliable and invalid interpretations of the students' writing proficiency. Assuming cohesion as a measure of writing quality, the present study chose samples of academic writing which did not specify cohesion as a descriptor in the assessment scale. A cohesion index was, therefore, developed to investigate how cohesive devices created texture in the sample texts and correlated with the test scores. Descriptive statistics and non-parametric correlation analysis revealed that cohesive devices were positively associated with appropriate use to create texture; however, they only weakly correlated with the test scores. The findings imply that there is the need for developing assessment criteria which consistently measures the text-forming resources to reliably ascertain the writing proficiency of the students. The study recommends a research initiative based on an analytical assessment criteria to ensure a more accurate analysis of the role of cohesion in text-formation and writing quality.

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.

Recently, as low-cost microcontrollers such as those developed by Arduino and Raspberry Pi have become widely available, the term maker education has emerged as a hot topic in education. Teachers are increasingly using low-cost microcontrollers in their classes, but conducting a class that focuses on using a microcontroller may cause difficulties or problems, for the learner or for the instructor. To solve these problems, it was necessary to design a teaching and learning model for the use of low-cost microcontrollers to be applied at school sites. Accordingly, this study aimed to develop a teaching and learning model for using low-cost microcontrollers. As a result of this study, the author proposes a teaching and learning model that consists of six stages: topic selection, exploration of implementation methods, experimentation, production of teaching and learning materials, implementing lesson plans, and improvement. According to this procedure, teaching and learning materials were created and applied for the subject matter of a middle school unit on “Making Arduino Automobile.” The model developed in this study may provide a guideline for teachers who want to apply low-cost microcontrollers in their classes.

The present study aims at investigating some English speaking problems found by the students of English language education department at State Islamic Institute of Kudus and exploring some implications for speaking curriculum development of English language education department. This study used a descriptive qualitative approach and the data were taken from semi-structured interviews, observation and focus group discussion (FGD). The results of the analysis reveal that the problems encountered by the students in English language education department in speaking English cover the lack of appropriate vocabulary, the lack of grammar mastery, the lack of correct pronunciation, the lack of input of English outside the class, the lack of confidence and the lack of English speaking curriculum development. There have been some implications for developing English speaking curriculum. First, the curriculum of speaking should be well designed. Second, lecturers should design English speaking curriculum integrated by technology and social media that makes students to enrich some culture, knowledge and experience around the world. Third, lecturers should facilitate the English speaking curriculum with the English speaking community so that the students will have more chance to speak English inside and outside the class.

This study determined the challenging learning experiences of engineering students while completing their degree program as factor that might influence to their changing attitude towards achieving higher academic performance. Mixed method of research was utilised in the study considering the total population of 75 graduating students for quantitative and 12 students for qualitative part of the study using focus group discussion. Results showed that engineering students have significantly higher level of positive attitude towards academic performance during their junior level but significantly lower after taking professional courses. Attaining high academic performance still really matters for the engineering students during their junior level but continuously changing their perspective due to encountered challenging experiences while taking the professional courses. Performance in General Engineering courses describes the attitude of the students towards academic performance in personal aspect while professional courses define their attitude in professional aspect. The finding of the qualitative research revealed that there are three themes emerged in the challenging experiences of the engineering students and these are: Abandoned Social Freedom, Survival of the Fittest and Future Oriented Mindset which contributed to the changing perspectives of the engineering students.

This study aims to analyze students’ creative thinking skills in answering the problem-solving questions. This study employs qualitative design, involving 110 fifth graders in Malang Municipality and Regency as the subjects. The obtained data were analyzed using the descriptive-explorative approach. The findings reveal that the high-achievers in Mathematics showed good skills in the aspects of fluency and flexibility, but were still struggling in the novelty aspect.  The average-achievers showed good skills in flexibility aspects but were lacking in the fluency and novelty aspects. They showed an understanding of Mathematics problems but found it difficult to decide the solving strategies, and thus their answers were lacking in structure and less systematic. When solving a problem, the calculation made seemed rushing, was less careful, and frequented with trial and error strategy. The low-achievers showed difficulties in understanding the problems. Their answers were not systematic, not well-structured, and not detailed. This indicates that the low-achievers had not shown creative thinking skills in fluency, flexibility, and novelty aspects.

New Inquiry-Based Learning (NIBL) was developed to improve students’ multiple higher-order thinking skills (MHOTS), such as thinking critically, analytically, creatively, and practically (CACP). This study aimed to examine the increase of students’ MHOTS ability, their perceptions of the NIBL model, and the contribution of the NIBL model to the learning outcomes.  A quasi-experiment of the nonequivalent control group design was implemented in this study. Research subjects were university students majoring in chemistry education and enrolling in the Organic Chemistry course. The experiment and the control groups consisted of 34 and 32 students, respectively. The collected data were analyzed by using t-test and ANCOVA procedures. N-Gain scores were calculated to measure the differences in the increase in learning outcomes. Eta square values measured the contribution of NIBL. The results of this study revealed that there were differences in the learning outcomes of the experiment and control group. The CACP thinking skills and the mastery of organic chemistry concepts of the experiment group increased significantly. The N-Gain scores of practical thinking skills aspect were on medium category, and for critical, analytical, and creative thinking, as well as for mastery of organic chemistry concepts were on high categories. For the control group, the N-Gain scores of all categories were on low or medium categories. The NIBL model effectively improved the prospective chemistry teachers’ M-HOTS in terms of CACP thinking skills and contributed significantly to the increase in the students’ mastery of organic chemistry concepts.

In the present study, perceptions of Turkish school administrators and teachers towards Syrian refugee children were examined through metaphors. 71 school administrators and 242 teachers from 27 different provinces of Turkey participated in the study. As a result of the study, the metaphors produced by school administrators were grouped into four categories: “child with cultural adaptation and belonging problems”, “fragile and needy child”, “child who is no different from other children” and “problematic child”. The metaphors produced by teachers were grouped into six categories: “child with cultural adaptation and belonging problems”, “child who is no different from other children”, “fragile and needy child”, “problematic child”, “child who can reveal her/his potential with interest” and “compatible child”. Participants' perceptions of refugee children were not related to gender but there was a significant relationship between professional seniority and the number of refugee children at school. Although school administrators and teachers have positive perceptions about refugee children, their negative perceptions are largely due to the lack of professional experience and the high number of students at school. Providing vocational support to teachers and administrators, planning the number of students in schools, and providing resources to schools will improve positive perceptions about refugee children.

The Arduino microcontroller enables ordinary people to perform professional tasks that only traditional engineering professionals could perform. Recently, several educational cases have been applied to primary and secondary schools, which is a desirable attempt to popularize engineering education. This study meta-analyzed the effects of Arduino-based education in primary and secondary schools in Korea from the perspective of engineering education. Accordingly, 16 academic journals and dissertations were selected that verified educational effects by Arduino-based education to primary and secondary students in Korea, and 31 effect sizes were confirmed. According to the results of this study, the overall average effect size was 0.656, which confirmed that Arduino-based education had a positive educational effect. Furthermore, this study calculated the effect size as measured by categorical and continuous variables such as school level, the inclusion of curriculum, giftedness, publication status, the programming language used, publication year, number of sessions, and number of students. Implications were suggested from the perspective of engineering education. This study is meaningful because it suggests the application of Arduino to primary and secondary schools in engineering education by confirming the positive educational effect of Arduino-based education.

The implementation of Lesson Study (LS) varies considerably across countries and institutions and is still in a phase of adaptation and experimentation. This article explains the result and the process of a school-based initiative endeavor to implement LS at a suburban elementary in Padang, Indonesia. The study involved 13 teachers, the principal and 6 classes of students. The data were collected through observation and interview. They were classified on the basis of three noticeable emerging themes- teacher collaboration, scaffolding, and reflection. The data were analyzed qualitatively. The results of data analysis reveal a promising improvement in these aspects. Implementing school- support LS increased by weaving the concept into practice helped teachers develop their professionalism gradually. It was obvious that the teachers felt more at ease to work collaboratively when they designed the lesson. This also affected their design which showed more meaningful learning activities and challenging tasks. Then, the teachers improved the way they scaffolded the pupils. The content of reflection and the way the results of reflection were conveyed became better. The principal’s support and the teachers’ strong willingness to elevate their quality apparently took an important role. In spite of that, there were some challenges in carrying out collaboration, providing appropriate scaffolding, and doing reflection. Changing the teachers’ common practice to LS apparently needs some adjustment and time.

This research aimed at analyzing the influence of ‘Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning’ model assisted by realia media, in which it was to improve the scientific literacy and critical thinking skill of primary school students, especially for the material of energy. This quasi-experiment research used single factor independent groups design. The research sample of this research were fourth grade students of SD Inpres Oeba 2 Kupang City, East Nusa Tenggara Province, of which students were in the academic year of 2019/2020. The technique of sample collection was carried out purposive sampling for 2 classes. The IVA class was used as the experimental class (POGIL model assisted by the realia media), in which it consisted of 30 students and the IVB class was used as the control class (expository learning) that consisted of 28 students. The learning was carried out in four meetings. The data of scientific literacy and the results test of critical thinking were collected by means of objective test on the energy material. Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) was used to analyze the data using significance level of 0.05. The results indicate that (1) There is a significant difference between the students’ scientific literacy who gain the POGIL learning assisted by the realia media and the students’ scientific literacy who get the expository learning; and (2) There is a significant difference between the critical thinking of students who get POGIL learning assisted by realia media and the students who get the expository learning. It can be concluded that there is a significant difference between the scientific literacy and the students’ critical thinking taught by the POGIL learning that assisted by realia media to the students who use expository learning. Since there is a significant difference, it means that the POGIL learning assisted by realia media has an influence on the students' scientific literacy and critical thinking.

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.

The investigation of epistemological beliefs has become important in both pre-service and in-service education of teachers. Different scales have been developed to determine teachers’ epistemological beliefs. The same scale yields different results in different cultures especially due to the cultural aspects of education. Therefore, testing the scales in different cultures contributes to their use. Within this framework, the scale developed by Schommer and adapted to Turkish culture by Deryakulu and Büyüköztürk was adapted to Kosovo culture. In the study, whether the Albanian, Bosnian and Turkish versions of the scale support the same factor structure was tested by employing the quantitative research method. First, the Epistemological Belief Scale was translated into Albanian and Bosnian and expert opinion was received. The scale was applied to 200 teachers who serve in schools where education languages are Albanian, Bosnian and Turkish. The scale comprised 35 items and 3 factors. Linguistic equivalence was prioritized, as the study was carried out in Kosovo. The Confirmatory Factor Analysis was employed to confirm the suitability of the three-factor structure of the scale. The analyses were carried out separately for each language and revealed acceptable fit indices. Reliability analysis produced satisfactory results.

Shared leadership and employee empowerment develop positive feelings in employees towards the organization, the work they do and themselves. These positive emotions create confidence for employees to try new methods and techniques in their work. Employees who approach their work with an innovative mindset will be more beneficial to their organizations and increase their own satisfaction. In this study, the shared leadership, employee empowerment and innovativeness levels of schools, the relationship of these variables with each other and the predictive status were examined according to the perceptions of the teachers. This study is a research in relational survey model. The data of the research were collected in the province of Malatya in November during 2019-2020 academic year. The data were collected through "Shared Leadership", "Employee Empowerment" and "Innovativeness" scales. Correlation analysis and structural equation modeling were used to analyze the data. According to the results of the research, the levels of shared leadership, employee empowerment and innovativeness in primary schools are “partially high”. There is a positive, significant and moderate relationship between the school's shared leadership and employee empowerment and teachers' innovativeness. In addition, shared leadership and employee empowerment predict teachers' innovativeness. For this reason, it is considered important to create a school environment where leadership is shared in order to increase the innovativeness of teachers and to support teachers and include them in decision-making processes in order to empower them.

The educational transition between early childhood education and primary education is a complex moment of change with repercussions throughout the academic life of the students. For this reason, it is important to seek continuity between both educational stages. A successful transition produces for the social, cognitive and emotional well-being of the student. The aim of this study is to find out how transition-related factors apply in ten European Union (EU) countries. The factors analyzed are the age of onset of transition, the teacher–student ratio, types of clustering, financing of the stage, responsibility, and both initial and in-service teacher training. The methodology followed in this study is documentary analysis and the main source of data search has been the European Commission's Eurydice portal. The results show differences in stage change within each country, especially in the explicit consideration of a transition period. The main conclusion is that there is a great difference between the northern and southern countries. The main differences between countries in the transitions from early childhood education to primary education in the EU are in the years of compulsory education, the teacher/student/unit ratio, the initial teacher training, and the decentralization of education.

Cognitive is an essential developmental aspect for children. The cognitive barrier is one of the learning barriers experienced by children with autism. From educational perspective, teacher language input can appropriately develop cognitive abilities of autistic students. This study aims to describe (1) teacher’s language input for recognizing the cognitive abilities of autistic students in classroom interactions and (2) cognitive abilities of autistic students based on teacher language input in classroom interactions. The approach of the study was conducted qualitatively with case study, while source of data was oral texts from the teacher language input toward autistic students in classroom. The results shows that the cognitive abilities of autistic students can be recognized through teacher's language input in classroom learning by engaging interrogative speech acts, such as representative, directive, expressive, and commissive. The cognitive level is used to see the variants of the teacher's language input. Meanwhile, the acquisition of students' cognitive abilities based on teacher language’s input is developed through memorizing, understanding, applying, and analyzing skills with criteria student A and B in the medium category, and G in low category.

Individuals and societies continue and end their lives within the framework of values. One of the most important of these values is the concept of homeland. Homeland refers to the land, where the individuals were born and live in, a piece of which may also be owned by such individuals. The concept of homeland is always given utmost importance in the curricula. In this context, it is important to determine the perceptions of elementary and middle school students towards the concept of homeland in order for foreseeing the love they felt for, and the importance they attach to, the geography they live in. In this study, it is aimed to reveal what students understand from the concept of homeland through metaphors. Phenomenology pattern, one of the qualitative research patterns, was used in this research. The study group of the research comprises 580 students. “Convenience sampling” was used in sample selection. In this study, elementary and middle school students were given a form of incomplete sentences in the following format of “Homeland is like ............... Because .................” as a data collection tool, and then they were asked to write their opinions by filling the blanks. The results of the study revealed that the participants expressed a total of 59 metaphors in relation to the concept of homeland. Based on the metaphors developed by students for the concept of "homeland", 7 categories were created. These categories are; Administration, Vitality, Concrete Object, National Value, Security, Value, Social Environment. The results of the study indicate that particular attention should be paid to the synonyms of the word “Homeland”. It would be useful to organize certain activities in order to create a sense of belonging and national awareness among the students.

This study aims at exploring the professional identities of six ELT students through the lens of critical incidents. For the sake of this aim, six ELT students took part in this research at an Anatolian High School in 2018-2019 spring semester. The teaching practicum process was conducted from April to mid of May 2019, once a week over six-week practicum. The main data collection of this study was the Critical Incident Questionnaire (CIQ). Additionally, two questions were asked to the participants to evaluate their actual and designated professional identities. The first question was answered before the practicum and the second one was answered at the end of the practicum process. The results showed that some internal and external factors influenced their professional identity. Additionally, it was found that critical incidents could be used to spot the changes in the participants’ professional identity formation processes. Results of the study indicated that not only negative but also some positive critical incidents contributed to the participants’ professional identity formation. As a result of the encountered incidents that influenced their formation of identities, it was observed that the actual identities of four students changed from positive to negative at the end of the process. Correspondingly, the findings of this study put forward that how the participants explored their identity formation process through the critical incidents.

The research investigated whether there is a correlation between participation in a course entitled "Diversity and multiculturalism in the global era" as perceived by Jewish and Arab students in Israel and a change in the students' attitudes and behaviors and their performance of activities in a multicultural context in the education field. The course was part of a master's degree program in Policy and Administration in Education in an academic college in central Israel. Pre-course and post-course questionnaires were administered to the course participants. Participants were 528 students; 177 responded to the pre-course questionnaire and 351 responded to the post-course questionnaire. The research findings indicated a direct association between participation in the course and activities conducted in the education field. In addition, students’ acquisition of knowledge on multiculturalism mediated the association between participation in the course and performance of multicultural activities in the education field. Differences were found between Jewish and Arab students' reports: Jews reported a multicultural academic atmosphere significantly more than Arabs. Contrastingly, Arab students gave significantly higher grades than Jewish students to reciprocal relations between the groups in the college and reported a more positive change in their attitudes towards the other group and towards multiculturalism and were more convinced that the course contributed to their multicultural thinking. These findings have theoretical and practical implications that can inform policymakers planning education for multiculturalism as a permanent component in academic programs, while responding to different sectors' cultural uniqueness to promote equality between them.