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.

In this research, the influence of the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic on 9th grade students’ mathematics achievement is analyzed through quantitative and qualitative methods. A posttest only with control group design was used to compare the mathematics marks of 9th grade students from the previous school year (before the pandemic, control group) and the current school year (during the pandemic, experimental group). Seventy-three students from a public high school in Spain attending class on alternate days participated in the study. Three focus group sessions were held with students, and five semi-structured interviews were conducted—two with teachers and three with students’ families. Results show statistically significant differences in students’ mathematics achievement, with students enrolled in 9th grade the previous (pre-pandemic) year outscoring their peers currently enrolled in 9th grade (during the pandemic) by 22.17%. An overall negative effect size of Hedge’s g = -1.11 was reported. Although significant statistical differences between groups were reported for both male and female students, the effect was 42.31% larger for male students (Hedge’s g = -1.11) than for females (Hedge’s g = -0.78). The qualitative information supported the quantitative results. Changes in educational settings, students’ lack of motivation, monotony, and students’ level of responsibility were qualitatively reported as factors that may explain this phenomenon. The main conclusion of this study is that the COVID-19 pandemic may be significantly and negatively affecting 9th grade students’ mathematics achievement.

The purpose of the present study is to examine the contribution of professional learning community of pedagogical instructors, training teachers, and teaching students in clinical model for teacher education to their professional development. The prior is carried out through examining a variety of categories: namely, collaborative learning, personal responsibility, collective responsibility, reflective pedagogical discourse and action research, knowledge development and learning processes. Thirty-three members of the learning community constituted the study community. The research tool is a multiple-choice questionnaire that was developed for the requirements of the research and personal feedback on open-ended questions. The quantitative data collected by the questionnaire indicated that the learning community of the clinical model for teacher education contributed greatly to the professional development of all participants regardless of field of knowledge, role in the training process, and the curricular activities offered by colleges and schools. The findings revealed a negative relationship between the field of teacher education among the participants on the one hand, and professional development on the other hand.

Recently, researchers have paid more attention to the aspects of classroom learning environments because of their effects on students’ cognitive and effective outcomes. However, current literature reveals the lack of research that explores the factors of classroom environments in Vietnamese context. The present study, therefore, aims to validate the psychometric properties of the 25-items version of the My Class Inventory (MCI), translated into Vietnamese for 487 secondary school students. Factorial analysis showed an acceptable fit for the four-factors structure of the MCI – cohesiveness, competitiveness, satisfaction, and friction – to be appropriate for secondary school students. Internal consistency reliabilities of the general scales and four subscales were satisfactory. Results support the suitability of the MCI to assess students’ classroom environment within Vietnam’s educational context. The study recommended, among other things, that future studies should be conducted to explore the validity of the MCI on other samples of Vietnamese secondary students.

Regardless of varied lingua-cultural ideologies enriching the theories of communicative competence (CC), the four CC dimensions (e.g., linguistics, sociolinguistics, discourse, and communication strategies (CSs)) still become the main cores of English speaking (ES) classrooms. Of the four dimensions, CSs seem to be the most technical which deserve to be persistently studied. Hence, this study aimed to probe into ES lecturers’ performances of CSs, their efforts to improve students’ CC, and the impacts of their efforts on students’ learning according to students’ perspectives. Two ES lecturers and 10 students at a university in Indonesia were purposively selected to be the participants. They were observed and interviewed according to the study’s purposes. This study uncovered various CSs performed by ES lecturers according to several contexts, such as to understand spoken texts, to understand spoken recorded texts, and to overcome temporary communication difficulties. Various ES lecturers’ efforts were also revealed according to their functions to improve each dimension of CC. Most students perceived the lecturers’ efforts positively due to the impacts on their motivation, self-efficacy, collaborative skills, and metacognition. However, few students echoed negative perceptions about a lecturer’s native-speakerism-endorsed effort due to lingua-cultural issues. Implication, limitation, and recommendation are discussed.

This study aimed to explore online and distance learning (ODL) issues related to higher education during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Nepal. We applied an online survey design with a five-point Likert scale. We surveyed 71 (57 male and 14 female) postgraduate students in science education at a public higher education institution in Kathmandu, Nepal. A Principal Component Analysis identified four major constructs as the components of ODL issues. They are scarcity, efficiency, access, and inconvenience. The results of the Independent Samples Test (t-test and ANOVA) showed that participants' views about scarcity were significantly different across their gender (male and female) and device use (mobile, laptop, and desktop). They were not significantly different in their views about efficiency, access, and inconvenience across gender, device use, hometown, age group, ethnicity, and school type at .05 level of significance.

Technological tools are means by which online teaching could encourage the engagement of students, especially elementary students. The present research studies how elementary teachers develop their use of technological tools in their asynchronous and synchronous online teaching, specifically when this online teaching occurs during emergency education. The research was conducted in the academic year 2019/2020. We interviewed two elementary teachers, where one of them taught asynchronous lessons more than synchronous, while the second taught synchronous lessons more than asynchronous. We analyzed the data using two frameworks: one for interaction type and one for engagement type. The research results indicated that different interaction types influenced teachers’ decisions to use technological tools. In addition, what concerned the teachers’ use of tools at the beginning was the cognitive engagement, but they advanced towards focusing on behavioral and the affective engagement.

The onset of the Coronavirus disease COVID-19 crisis has forced pedagogical institutes to adopt online teaching/learning as an urgent strategy to cope with the pandemic. Utilizing the theories of social capital, knowledge sharing, and mobile learning constructs, this research aims to investigate the association among these constructs in one of the higher education institutes in the context of developing countries. Additionally, to improve our understanding of the mediation effect of mobile learning on this relationship, the author used the structural equation modeling technique to analyze the data from questionnaires administered to undergraduate students attending classes during the pandemic. Results revealed that the relationship between social capital factors and knowledge sharing is significantly positive. Results also showed that there is a partial mediation to back up the correlation of social capital factors and knowledge sharing.

This research investigated the correlations among problem-solving, coping styles, and stress levels of parents of children with autism spectrum disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and typical development. We used a correlational survey model design and collected the data with the Problem-Solving Inventory (PSI), the Ways of Coping Questionnaire (WCQ), and the Parent Stress Scale (PSS). The study group consisted of 350 parents. The research findings revealed that stress levels were negatively correlated with functional coping strategies and problem-solving. We found no significant difference between parents of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and typical development in terms of problem-solving approaches. Considering the relationships between the parents in terms of WCQ scores, there was no statistically significant difference in the subscales of self-confidence approach, submissiveness, optimistic approach, and seeking social support. Only the subscale of helplessness differed statistically based on the disability. Regarding the correlations between the groups in terms of stress levels, we found that the typical developmental group had lower PSS scores than the Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Autism Spectrum Disorder groups. We believe that preventive support programs for stress management can make significant contributions to efficient coping methods and problem-solving.

Learning by teaching is a technique where students teach an actual class to facilitate active learning. This paper reports ongoing research involving undergraduate students at an established university in Indonesia. The objective of this quantitative study was to find out the effect of this teaching technique in improving students’ 21st century skills. The sample was selected using a cluster sampling technique, where 25 students who were English as a Foreign Language pre-service teachers were assigned to an experimental group, and the other 23 students were treated as a control group. The students in the experimental group were asked to conduct a workshop in groups to students from the same department at a different university. Each group selected one of the topics in their course syllabus. A pre-test measuring the students’ soft skills was conducted before the course started and after it finished. The results show that soft skills, which include accountability, communication, innovation, problem-solving, teamwork, professional working, and networking skills, improved significantly among students in the experimental group, but the improvement was not evident in the control group. Therefore, learning by teaching should be embraced as an alternative teaching technique when soft-skill development becomes a target of instruction.

This study investigates the contribution of teachers’ willingness to their professional competence in adapting to digital learning transformation during the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic and its relationship to instructional leadership and self-efficacy. Data were collected by distributing online questionnaires consisting of 4 constructs, namely instructional leadership, self-efficacy, teacher’s willingness to change, and professional competence, and distributed to 221 Indonesian High School teachers. Structural Equation Model (SEM) was used for analysis using Analysis of Moment Structure (AMOS) version 23.0 to examine the hypotheses. The results showed that instructional leadership significantly influences teachers’ willingness to change with a positive impact on their professional competence. Furthermore, there is a significant effect on teachers’ willingness to change their professional competence, insignificant on self-efficacy with substantial impacts on their willingness to change. The analysis results through the Sobel test showed that the teachers’ willingness to change is an excellent mediating variable for self-efficacy in influencing professional competence. Conversely, it is not an excellent mediating variable for instructional leadership towards professional competence. The importance of teachers’ willingness to improve their professional competence is a new finding that significantly contributes to their professional development.

Vietnam has a reputation for being a successful nation in preventing the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in 2020, with a lower number of illnesses than other ASEAN countries. However, to ensure that students are safe and informed about the coronavirus outbreak, Vietnamese higher education has developed online learning (OL). During the COVID-19 epidemic, this paper explores the relationship between elements such as learning readiness, learning strategies, and learning performance in the Vietnamese OL setting. Four hundred undergraduate students were randomly selected from Hong Duc universities, and Saigon University participated in this study in different zones. Analyzed data has applied structural equation modeling (SEM) using partial least squares (SmartPLS-SEM). The findings found that Vietnamese students were much more likely to believe in interaction in OL, to feel comfortable using a computer with their computer efficacy, and to have confidence in communicating in the digital environment, all of which were important variables in assuring the success of using OL. The factors of “motivation” and “test preparation” show a poor relationship with learning performance. Therefore, the OL process in Vietnamese, on the other hand, needs to be more inventive, with a greater focus on lecturers' awareness and practice of online teaching pedagogies such as motivation, techniques, and test arrangement. During OL, students' readiness in terms of learning control, self-directed learning, and engagement must be considered and supported.

The government has imposed social restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic, affecting the education sector, including the early childhood school. Distance education offers different methods from the conventional methods, as the students are expected to gain the same skills, including critical thinking skills. Therefore, teachers must provide distance learning innovations using relevant learning media, such as multimedia-based learning. This research aims to assess the efficacy of multimedia learning in early childhood distance learning. This research is a quantitative model with a quasi-experimental pretest and posttest design. The data collection technique utilized questionnaires given to 30 samples of early childhood children. The data were statistically analyzed using SPSS software. The results confirmed that multimedia-based learning for distance learning could develop critical thinking skills in early childhood children during the COVID-19 pandemic. The results of this study offer exploration of learning strategies to improve children’s critical thinking.

The research aimed to examine students' attitudes towards learning and teaching processes in an online course, investigating whether there was a difference between Jewish and Arab students' attitudes towards this course. The study combined mixed methods. Data were drawn from a questionnaire (including mostly closed-ended questions) completed by 195 graduate students and eight semi- structured interviews. Additionally, the students' grades for their course assignments were analyzed. Findings indicated that all course participants perceived the teaching and learning processes positively, but Jewish students held stronger positive attitudes concerning the learning processes' effectiveness than did Arab students. Jewish course participants' achievements were higher than those of Arab participants. The variable `sector` had a moderating effect on perceptions of the course structure's clarity and success in the course, strong clarity led to Arab students' success on the course but not for Jewish students. Arab students shared their difficulty adapting to a learning style necessitating autonomous learning processes. These findings are explained by Arab society's unique cultural dimensions, characterised by high-power distance and strong avoidance of uncertainty. The findings can inform designers of multicultural online courses that optimal teaching practices necessitate culture sensitivity, and this constitutes an issue for future studies.

This review explores research into the effects of collaborative learning interventions on critical thinking, creative thinking, and metacognitive skill ability on biological learning. The search was conducted from 2000 to 2021. We found 36 critical thinking studies, 18 creative thinking studies, and 14 metacognitive skill studies that met the criteria. The results showed that collaborative learning influences large categories (ES=4.23) on critical thinking, influences large categories (ES= 7.84) on creative thinking, and influences large categories (ES= 8.70) on metacognitive skill. The study's findings show that collaborative learning interventions have the highest impact on metacognitive abilities. Based on these findings, we provide insights for education research and practitioners on collaborative learning interventions that seem to benefit the empowerment of high levels of thinking at various levels of education to be combined with various other interventions in the future. The type of intervention, level of education, materials used, and study quality criteria were included in the study.

The paramount objective of English language teaching and learning is to achieve language competence in communicative purposes with the minimal learners’ errors. To attain that goal, corrective feedback plays an important role due to its efficiency in developing learners’ English capacity. However, the correlation between language students’ and teachers’ views on the issues of corrective feedback including its types, methods and timing has received inadequate attention from educational scholars. This study, therefore, aimed to examine teachers’ and learners’ perceptions of corrective feedback at a higher education institution. The research employed the mixed method with the participation of 425 law-majored sophomores. Specifically, the statistics involved the survey questionnaires, follow-up interviews with students as well as the interview with thirteen teachers of English. The results indicated overall matches between learners’ and teachers’ high remarks on the necessity of oral corrective feedback in the students’ English acquisition. Notably, they both highly valued the use of metalinguistic feedback, prompt feedback for grammatical and lexical errors while explicit correction and recast were preferred for phonological errors. In terms of feedback timing, students were perceived not to be negatively affected by immediate correction, yet expressed their preferences for the delayed corrective feedback, which was compatible with teachers’ views. Such findings set practical pedagogical implications for language educators in the language teaching and learning process.

This research aims to determine second-year university students’ understanding in interpreting and representing fractions. A set of fraction tests was given to students through two direct learning interventions. An unstructured interview was used as an instrument to obtain explanations and confirmations from the purposive participants. A total of 112 student teachers of primary teacher education program at two private universities in Indonesia were involved in this research. A qualitative method with a holistic type case study design was used in this research. The results indicate that a significant percentage of the participants could not correctly interpret and represent fractions. In terms of interpretation, it is found how language could obscure the misunderstanding of fractions. Then, the idea of a fraction as part of a whole is the most widely used in giving meaning to a fraction compared to the other four interpretations, but with limited understanding. Regarding data representation, many participants failed to provide a meaningful illustration showing the improper fraction and mix number compared to the proper fraction. Improvement of fraction teaching at universities - particularly in primary teacher education programs - is needed so that students get the opportunity to develop and improve their knowledge profoundly. We discuss implications for teaching fractions.

The purpose of this study was to look into teachers' perceptions of code-switching functions and effects in English as a foreign language classroom. In the study, a descriptive survey design and an interview were used to investigate the functions and effects of code-switching in English as a foreign language (EFL) classroom. 46 people responded to the survey questionnaire about code-switching functions and their impact in the classroom. Seven teachers participated in the group interview. The interview findings revealed six functions and four effects of code-switching. According to the survey findings, the majority of teachers supported the use of code-switching in their classrooms because it served a useful purpose in the process of teaching and learning English. The findings also revealed that teachers believed code-switching provided a clear purpose and had a positive impact on instruction and language development in EFL classrooms by creating a sociable environment. It was also demonstrated that code-switching to teachers was effective in EFL classrooms and played an important role in English learning and teaching. The implications of the findings for EFL teachers and language learning settings were discussed.

This investigation examined English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers’ perceptions of their self-efficacy in using instructional strategies in the context of the Mekong Delta of Vietnam. The research was designed as a descriptive research collecting quantitative and qualitative data from a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. Forty-six Vietnamese EFL teachers were invited to partake in the study. The results indicated that participants were in general confident in using instructional strategies in their English classes. Specifically, the participants were highly confident in their abilities to use multimedia (M=4.41), assessment techniques (M=4.35), and classroom English (M=4.35). The study also indicated that participants were not confident in evaluating the level of task difficulty (M=3.37), dealing with unmotivated students (M=3.57), and meeting students’ particular needs for support (M=3.62). Pedagogical implications and recommendations were addressed to help manifold stakeholders at the end of this paper.

The delivery of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) learning to improve an individual’s competence and future career interests has become a critical scientific undertaking for teachers and researchers alike. A plethora of research has proposed various hands-on robotics activities built on constructivist theories, thereby facilitating the development of knowledge based on reality for scientific and non-scientific stakeholders. Robotics may become an essential focus point within technology provision, which is an essential underlying characteristic for the seminal development of computational thinking (CT). However, despite the potential benefit of CT in developing an individual’s problem-solving skills, strategies for improving this ability through hands-on robotics activities largely remain underexplored. This paper highlights the constructs drawn from hands-on robotics activities in a STEM workshop designed for pre-service teacher students. The qualitative research design involved eight participants to investigate the responses of pre-service teachers to a hands-on robotics activity intended to provide STEM material. The research findings emphasise the correlations between the CT principles and STEM learning phases and underscore the roles played by educational robotics to enhance previous literature on learning experience.