This study considers the interaction between an e-learning system, the Blackboard system, and the students who use it in Saudi Arabia. While previous work exists, there is limited consideration of the assessment of the preferences of e-learning system usability variables based on students’ perspectives, especially in developing countries such as Saudi Arabia. This paper attempts to fill the gap by investigating the relative importance of the design criteria developed for e-learning system usability evaluation from the students’ perspective in Saudi tertiary education. Based on reviewed literature, a set of usability principles was developed that have had an influence in the students’ learning process and use of the e-learning system. The list includes system navigation, system learnability, visual design, information quality, instructional assessment and system interactivity. An exploratory study was carried out to identify the most important usability design characteristics from a student’s perspective and then evaluate the overall usability of the current e-learning system, based on this subset. A quantitative approach was adopted to weigh usability design characteristics, based on 181 learners’ perceptions. The sample consists of undergraduates who are users of a web-based e-learning system in a university in Saudi Arabia. The research instrument was tested for construct validity and reliability. The analysed results have shown that information quality is the most important dimension followed by the navigation of the e-learning system. The study has also revealed that the system learnability and visual design came third and fourth in order of importance of e-learning system usability assessment. Finally, the least important design categories that influenced the e-learning system usability assessment were instructional assessment and system interactivity. The empirical results of this study may help to provide insights for designers and evaluators leading to a more effective approach to improve the usability and uptake of the e-learning system.

In this study, it was aimed to investigate the academic motivations and academic achievements of pre-service visual arts teachers in the Division of Art Education in the Department of Fine Arts in the Faculty of Education in terms of some variables. The study group consisted of 127 (79 female/ 48 male) students in the division of art education. As the data collection tool, the “Academic Motivation Scale (AMS)”, developed by Vallerand et al. and then, translated into Turkish for university students by Karaguven, was used to find out the academic motivations of students, and the personal information form was used to get the personal information of students in the study. In the research, in which the relational screening method was used, the descriptive analysis was applied to determine the motivation levels of pre-service visual arts teachers; independent sampling t-test to compare their average scores according to gender; one-way variance analysis to test according to the class variable, and Pearson Correlation test to determine the relationship between their academic motivation and academic achievement. The findings of the study show that the intrinsic and extrinsic motivations of pre-service visual arts teachers are at a good level. It was found that the amotivation levels of pre-service visual arts teachers were at a low level. As the average scores according to gender were investigated, the meaningful difference was encountered in favour of female participants for intrinsic motivations. It was found that the intrinsic motivations of females related to the achievement were higher. An increase, from 1st year to 4th years students, was observed in terms of the academic motivation levels of pre-service visual arts teachers according to the class variable. However, no meaningful difference was encountered between the average scores of the students' academic motivations according to the class variable. It was found that the relationship between academic motivation and academic achievement was low.

In almost all European countries, many schools offer a form of bilingual education provision according to which content subjects are taught either through two different languages or through one foreign language. This approach is known as Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL). The main problem addressed in this research article is the need to examine and describe the contribution of CLIL methodology to the development of bilingual language competence of students of a secondary vocational school. In addition, the study looks at the teaching and learning within a bilingual Slovak-English study program of the school, specifically at the implementation of CLIL methodology in content subjects taught within the program. Specifically, the extent, approaches, materials used in the study program to enhance bilingualism at school in general and the bilingual language competence of the students through CLIL methodology in particular, as well as opinions and perceptions of teachers and students were investigated. Three data collection tools were used – interviews with teachers and students, classroom observations and document review. The results of the study indicate that various factors inside and outside the classroom and school enhance students’ bilingual language competence with CLIL methodology playing an important but not a decisive role.

This paper presents how the process of flipped teaching with Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) works in teaching English as a Foreign Language (EFL) writing in the Indonesian context. As well, it also elaborates how the teaching model affects learner autonomy. This flipped teaching with CALL was experienced by some lecturers of private universities in East Java, Indonesia. This study used a multi-site case study research design. The data were yielded from in-class observation, lesson plan analysis, focus group interviews, and questionnaires. The total of 5 EFL writing teachers and 150 students from 5 private universities in East Java, Indonesia had participated in this study. Experimenting with flipped teaching with CALL in teaching EFL writing enabled the teachers, as course developers, to get an idea of their students’ response to the challenges of new ways, methods, and techniques of their study. The flip-class environment fostered better communication amongst learners and learner autonomy as well. The flip-class atmosphere also had a beneficial impact on the motivation of learners. The qualitative results from interviews of the learners showed that the learners had inspired themselves to engage in in-class learning activities and self-regulated teaching environments. The findings gave reflection to the teachers on several vitally necessary conditions enabling a course in a flipped teaching with CALL format to contribute to developing students’ professional competencies.

It is aimed, in this study, to compare the achievement level of the students taught with the fifth grade intensive English language curriculum (IELC) and the ones taught with the fifth grade English language curriculum (ELC) in terms of their speaking skills. With this aim, it is also intended to find out the failure behind the students’ speaking skills. Sequential explanatory strategy, which is one of the mixed-methods research designs, was used for this study as the aim was to further explain the quantitative findings. There were two groups of participants in this study. The first group included 64 fifth grade students selected from two different schools though simple random sampling, while the second group consisted of the five teachers teaching the fifth grade IELC. Two instruments developed by the researcher were utilized to collect data. The first instrument was an achievement test developed to measure students’ success in speaking skills, while the second instrument was a semi-structured interview schedule developed to collect data from the teachers implementing the fifth grade IELC. The quantitative data collected through the achievement test were analyzed with descriptive statistics including means and standard deviations and inferential statistics through independent samples t-test which was used to compare the two groups of students’ achievement levels, while the qualitative data gathered through the semi-structured interviews were analyzed with content analysis. The findings indicated that only one objective was attained by the students, the results of independent samples t-test indicated that there was not a significant difference in the achievement levels of the students taught with the fifth grade IELC and the ones taught with the fifth grade ELC. The reasons behind this failure was found to be resulting from teacher-related, student-related, and Ministry of National Education (MoNE)-related factors referring to implementation problems rather than curriculum design.

Environmental learning in the 21st century requires students to have Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS). The purpose of this study was to measure HOTS students using Higher Order Thinking Skills Assessment based on Environmental Problem (HOTS-AEP). The research method used in this study was descriptive method with a total sample of 248 students consisting of Elementary School (ES), Junior High School (JHS), Bachelor Program (BP), and Master Program (MP). The results showed that students overall have a very low HOTS category. HOTS scores scale of 0-100 on ES (22.3) are still higher than JHS (20.2). Whereas at the university level, BP scores (19.9) are lower than MP (21.4). This showed that learning must be oriented towards increasing HOTS through various media development learning, learning materials, learning models, and strategies. This study concludes that the HOTS score of students was still very low and needs to be improved.

In recent years, cyberbullying, which can be considered as a new form of bullying, has emerged as a result of developments in the field of technology and communication. Cyberbullying has become a social problem which has affected individuals’ lives negatively. The key to success in the elimination of cyberbullying and its negative effects lies in cyberbullying sensitivity. The present study aims to analyze teachers’ cyberbullying and cyber victimization experiences and levels of cyberbullying sensitivity based on some variables which are supposed to develop awareness regarding cyberbullying. Using survey as a research model, the present study focused on 346 teachers working at schools affiliated with Ministry of National Education in Tasova District located in Amasya (Turkey). “Personal Information Form”, “The Revised Cyberbullying Inventory for University Students” and “Cyberbullying Sensitivity Scale” were used as data collection tools. SPSS package program was used for data analysis and frequency and percentage values of demographic variables. Independent T test was used for gender and marital status variables, and One-Way ANOVA test was used for age and level of education variables. The findings of the present study revealed that most of the participants used social media websites actively and spent at least 2 or 3 hours on these websites on a daily basis. Teachers usually have a Facebook and/or Instagram account, and benefit from social media for research purposes and playing games. It can be stated that teachers have a significantly high level of cyberbullying sensitivity. However, it was also indicated that even though participants worked as a teacher, they still did cyberbully and suffered from cyber victimization in the past. While a significant difference was observed only in the dimension of cyber sensitivity in terms of marital status, age and level of education, a significant difference wasn’t observed in the dimensions of cyberbullying, cyber victimization and cyber sensitivity in terms of gender.

This article presents an empirical study on the perceptions of university students toward the development of the teaching practicum, using the CourseSites platform as a communication and support tool for their training. The opinions of the students were collected through a questionnaire. The sample consisted of 1500 students who were registered in the degrees of Early Childhood Education, Primary Education and Pedagogy (2008-2018). A descriptive, inferential and multi-level analysis was conducted, which confirmed that future teachers had activated their professional competences, as they had the chance to share their internship experiences with their faculty members and with their own classmates.

If the challenges of today's world are to be met, then there is a need to give more prominence to emotion in education, i.e.  indulging the personal, emotional and spiritual aspects of teaching, and promoting the teachers’ social-emotional competencies along with the schooling influence. In this respect, structuring the contents of in-service programs has gained vital importance in all fields of education including English Language Teaching (ELT). This action research study involved 17 EFL instructors to enhance their emotional literacy regarding learning in self and in others and consequently develop behaviors that would be caused by finding out about emotional intelligence. Relatedly, it was aimed to set up a framework of a teacher development program that the instructors at a foreign language school at a state university in Turkey improve their emotional literacy skills and create opportunities to impart these skills to their students as well as to people in their personal lives. The article reports on the participants’ and the researcher’s views regarding the maturation of an emotional literacy improvement program for in-service professional development purposes in ELT context.

A sample of 327 engineering bachelor students from a public university in Mexico took part in an information integration study to explore systematic thinking underlying propensity for cheating during a course exam. All study participants were provided with written descriptions of 12 scenarios pertaining to the academic evaluation criteria and were asked to rate the likelihood that they would cheat under such circumstances. The 12 scenarios reflected the experimental manipulation of three orthogonal factors: teacher’s teaching style, type of exam, and modality of assessment. Analysis results revealed four distinct attitudes toward cheating among students, two of which were independent of context (low and high desire to cheat) while the remaining two were context-dependent (low and moderate desire to cheat). All groups showed systematic thinking underlying their possible desire to cheat that was typified by the use of a summative cognitive rule for integrating information related to academic cheating. However, evaluation of factor relevance varied across the groups.

This study investigates the emotional responses of EFL student teachers to various affective situations during practicum and their coping strategies to enhance positive emotions and reduce negative emotions. Seventy female EFL student teachers participated in this study. To collect quantitative and qualitative data, two instruments were used: an emotional reflective diary and semi-structured interviews. The results of the study revealed that the practicum is an emotionally positive experience. The frequency of occurrence of pleasant affective situations was more than that of unpleasant ones. In the decreasing order of frequency, the most frequent emotional responses were happy, angry, and stressed and the least frequent ones were lost, influential, and shamed. Furthermore, the results indicated that student teachers adopted many regulation strategies to manage their emotions. The study recommends that teacher education programmes increase the focus on teachers’ emotions and training student teachers to manage their emotions to build future professional identities.

Since the 2008/2009 school year, every primary school in Slovenia has had to prepare its own “school moral education plan” and undertake its moral education activities on the basis of this plan. Although the basic content areas of the moral education plan are prescribed by law, the openness of the legal provisions allows schools to exercise professional autonomy. After a decade of the implementation of moral education plans we conducted an empirical quantitative-qualitative study aimed at analysing them in terms of content. The objective was to determine the extent to which the plans include and how they define the prescribed content areas, as well as the extent to which they include and how they define additional content areas that are not prescribed by law but could be included by schools depending on their individual particularities and the specific challenges of their environment. Data were collected through publications on the websites of a representative sample of randomly selected schools and analysed with a specially prepared instrument. The research shows that upgrading moral education activities through the school moral education plan would require (1) reconsideration and upgrading of the concept, (2) continuous state support for the self-evaluation of schools specifically in this area, and (3) support for schools to gain a deeper professional understanding of current moral education challenges and of forming moral education strategies that differ with regard to the content differences in the reasons for individual moral education challenges.

Initial teacher education (ITE) programmes have been critiqued widely for failing to connect educational theory with everyday practices in schools. More meaningful collaborations between schools and teacher education providers have featured prominently among key recommendations addressing the traditional theory-practice divide. This paper traces and critically analyses one ‘simplex’ story of initiating and leading a large-scale school-university partnership (SUP) network in the Republic of Ireland. Using a narrative approach, the protagonists and researchers of this SUP story bring their ‘simplex’ journey of doing and shaping SUP to life. Analysis of the Irish case study emphasizes the authentic transformation of teacher educators’ institutional identities as a powerful enabler of meaningful collaboration while also highlighting ethical dilemmas that arose for university tutors in the context of deeper relational engagement in the school-university cross-boundary space. Constrained in their ITE praxis by power relations and a disequilibrium of responsibilities, tutors’ doubts, discomfort and, at times, disillusionment led them to readjust their expectations with regard to SUP while also refocusing their energy and hopes in student teachers as collaborative future change agents.

This article analyzes the impact of the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) on students with Down syndrome through the consult of scientific articles published during the 2008 to 2018 period, in five scientific journal databases utilized in the academic world. Through a descriptive and quantitative methodology, the most significant bibliometric data according to citation index is shown. Likewise, a methodology based on the analysis of co-words and clustering techniques is applied through a bibliometric maps, in order to determine the fields of scientific study. The results show that articles published have a medium-low index of impact. There are linked with the importance of using ICT with these students, from educational inclusion and accessibility perspective.

The purpose of this research was to carry out an interdisciplinary art education activity with Turkish coffee and to evaluate the views of prospective teachers. For this aim, an integrated single case study design with a qualitative research approach was used. The study group consisted of twenty prospective social studies teachers. A questionnaire and semi-structured observation form were used as data collection tools. The data obtained were grouped under specific codes and categories and interpreted with a descriptive analysis approach. The visualised combination of the experiences, feelings and thoughts that the prospective teachers acquired through the natural colour content of coffee and the synthetic content of paints enabled the formation of a great variety of visual effects. The research findings show that prospective teachers gained aesthetic values through these visual effects. The integration of Turkish coffee with creative drama and painting also enabled the students to increase their awareness regarding Turkish coffee as an intangible cultural heritage in the social studies curriculum. Furthermore, it may ensure the dissemination of activities that involve the use of natural materials together with artificial materials for artistic purposes in all fields of teacher education.

Each child has a different personality type of tendency. Personality type is closely related to emotional intelligence. Through this study, we report the analysis results of the effects of personality type tendencies and the application of learning strategies in controlling the emotional intelligence of elementary school students. This study uses the quasi-experimental method with a 2x2 factorial design in data collection. Data analysis used was a two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) test. Research findings show that students with extrovert tendencies personality are better than students with introvert personality types. The application of inquiry strategies in learning is better at controlling emotional intelligence than the application of expository strategies.

Stress is inevitable in the world of teaching and practicum training and therefore, student teachers naturally incur a certain level of stress due to the demands for them to use various knowledge and skills in real school and classroom environment. Hence, practicum stress needs to be addressed accordingly. The central focus of this study is using a partial least square-structural equation modeling to explore the inter-relationships among the student teachers’ personal resources to mitigate practicum stress. A sample of 200 student teachers selected by purposive sampling from teacher education institutions in Sabah, Malaysia was used in this study. This study collected data via survey methods using a questionnaire developed from several existing scales. Findings showed that emotional intelligence, self-efficacy, and subjective well-being were able to explain resilience with good predictive accuracy and relevance but poorly for practicum stress. These findings were suggestive of the need to include additional constructs to explain perceived practicum stress better in future exploratory research.

The amount of empirical research conducted in the area of differentiated instruction (DI) is overwhelming, necessitating this bibliometric analysis in order to produce an overview of literature on the topic. The objective of this study is to identify the characteristics of the most-cited educational research published on the topic of DI using science mapping and multi-dimensional bibliometric analysis methods. To answer the research questions which were related to: i) publication, ii) authorship, iii) authors’ keywords, and iv) journals, a total of 100 articles published between 1990 and 2018, generated from SCOPUS, were analysed. The results showed that the most-cited articles and the number of publications were highest between 1995 and 2011. With a total of 545 citations “A Time for Telling”, published in the Journal of Cognition and Instruction (1998), was the most cited. The most significant keywords were: a) differentiated instruction, b) differentiation, c) curriculum, d) mathematics, and e) reading. The analysis showed that there were 283 authors who contributed to the 100 articles, and amongst them Carol McDonald Connor was the greatest contributor. It was also revealed that the great majority of the most-cited publications were from Q1-ranked journals. These findings inform scholarly efforts adopted in developing a diverse knowledge base in the field. The findings are important to scholars as they provide an overview of the progress of research on the topic of DI.

As we have seen from the current COVID-19 pandemic, misconceptions concerning viruses can lead to disease spread and panic. Therefore, it is imperative to determine misconceptions held concerning epidemics and pandemics. One virus that warrants study of misconceptions, albeit given limited attention in the West, is the Ebola virus. An assessment of college students’ knowledge and misconceptions about the Ebola virus was created and validated using data from 203 non-science majors at a Midwestern United States university. The data were analyzed using both classical and Rasch measurement methods to make a case for the validity of the assessment and to explore students’ misconceptions. The assessment was shown to be a valid and useful measure for students’ knowledge and misconceptions concerning Ebola. Integrating a confidence scale into students’ responses made the scale more reliable and assisted in identifying students’ tenacious misconceptions. Students displayed multiple misconceptions about viruses, including confusion between the characteristics of viruses and prokaryotes.  Students also displayed misconceptions about Ebola itself, including the overestimation of the number of Ebola strains and the number of patients who experience massive blood loss, misunderstandings about the incubation period, and overestimation of the mortality in comparison to other diseases like Influenza and Anthrax. This assessment can be used as a starting point in future studies to determine what misconceptions people have about Ebola and which types of educational and behavioral interventions need to be undertaken.

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.