This paper presents the meaning and characteristics of collaboration between school counsellors, school principals, and teachers in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic in Slovenia and the extraordinary situation in which work in educational institutions changed dramatically overnight and the community of students and professionals moved into a virtual space. In the first part of the paper, we highlight that a strong network of professionals in an educational institution is key to achieving the vision, goals and quality of educational work. In the second part of the paper, we present the results of a survey conducted through an online questionnaire among 328 Slovenian counsellors during the first wave of COVID-19 in April 2020. The results of this survey show a positive attitude of counsellors towards collaboration with principals and teachers. The emergency situation has raised awareness among all school professionals about the importance of mutual support, while providing an opportunity to reflect on ways to improve mutual collaboration and build mutual relationships that enable quality pedagogical work. One of the biggest challenges for any school community now is to maintain the sense of alliance and mutual support that was created in many schools during the pandemic.

The importance of research competence in pre-service teacher education has been highlighted in many studies, but concerns over the lack and inconsistency of definition, measurement, and development of research competence still exist. This poses a challenge for pre-service education programmes to provide quality education to pre-service teachers in this area. Through a systematic literature review it was found that there is a gap in the existing literature regarding the definition of research competence in pre-service teacher education, as there seems to be no consensus on the definition. There is, however, an agreement that the development of research competence is an important part of study programmes, as it contributes to higher quality education of pre-service teachers. Addressing this, the review proposes a concise definition of research competence as a multifaceted construct that includes critical thinking, self-directed learning, and organizational skills essential for effective research. The review also highlighted a lack of consensus on the most appropriate frameworks and tools to use in measuring research competence in pre-service teachers, with studies using various frameworks and tools that differ in terms of research methods, instruments and sample characteristics. The results suggest that there is a need for greater attention to be paid to the definition and measurement of research competence, as well as its development within pre-service teacher education programmes.

The world eagerly anticipates advancements in AI technologies, with substantial ongoing research on the potential AI applications in the domain of education. The study aims to analyse publications about the possibilities of artificial intelligence (AI) within higher education, emphasising their bibliometric properties. The data was collected from the Scopus database, uncovering 775 publications on the subject of study from 2000 to 2022, using various keywords. Upon analysis, it was found that the frequency of publications in the study area has risen from 3 in 2000 to 314 in 2022. China and the United States emerged as the most influential countries regarding publications in this area. The findings revealed that “Education and Information Technologies” and the “International Journal of Emerging Technologies in Learning” were the most frequently published journals. “S. Slade” and “P. Prinsloo” received the most citations, making them highly effective researchers. The co-authorship network primarily comprised the United States, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, and China. The emerging themes included machine learning, convolutional neural networks, curriculum, and higher education systems are co-occurred with AI. The continuous expansion of potential AI technologies in higher education calls for increased global collaboration based on shared democratic principles, reaping mutual advantages.

The present study aimed to improve the speaking skills of university students at the B1 level who presented limitations in their oral competence. An educational methodology based on designing and implementing an application adapted to the Common European Framework of Reference was developed and applied to boost language performance. A case study was used to conduct the two stages of this research; the former had to do with a control group where intervention was carried out using non-probabilistic sampling with students of the Computing Faculty; a pretest was applied to test the knowledge acquired in their classroom sessions during the first quarter in 2020. The second process was tracking an experimental group, which was assessed after implementing the developed methodology using the app "4skillsweb". A posttest was used to evidence learners' progress during the COVID-19 lockdown, and the results showed improved oral competence in aspects such as grammar and vocabulary, discourse management, pronunciation, and interactive communication, with about 95% confidence in its validation. A qualitative-quantitative methodology was used to determine the influence of the English app. A t-students test was implemented to corroborate the data analysis taken by both groups through SOFTWARE JMP v 11.0.0G.

This comprehensive systematic review delves into the increasing prevalence of integrating chatbots into language education. The general objective is to assess the current landscape of knowledge regarding chatbot utilisation and its influence on three crucial elements: students' skills, attitudes, and emotions. Additionally, the review seeks to scrutinise the advantages linked to incorporating chatbots in foreign language teaching, exploring their potential benefits while considering limitations and potential negative impacts on specific skills or user experiences. Consequently, this research offers valuable insights into the application of chatbots in foreign language education, shedding light on their potential advantages and areas that warrant further exploration and enhancement. The integration of chatbots in language learning, despite certain limitations, generally yields positive outcomes and enhances educational results in students' skills. Its characteristics can also influence a language learner's attitude, impacting factors such as motivation, interest, autonomy in learning, and engagement or even their sense of fun. Additionally, chatbots prove to be helpful in creating emotionally positive learning environments and can contribute to boosting students' self-esteem and self-confidence.

Digital competence entails the healthy, safe, and responsible use of digital technologies to take engage in society, to learn, work and to interact with. However, the use of digital devices is not exempt of risks. The objectives of this study were to analyze the mediating effect of fear of missing out (FoMO) on phubbing and nomophobia, and to explore the perception of the use of Internet-connected devices among 522 Spanish university students, with an average age of 27.11 years. The 80.8% are women and 68.2% study degrees related with Educational Sciences. A mixed-methods approach was used, combining bivariate correlation with structural equation modelling (SEM), and qualitative content analysis. SEM analysis revealed that FoMO had a significant effect on nomophobia and phubbing. Qualitative content analysis underlined that the time spent, problematic use, and sense of dependence were the main concerns for participants. It is emphasized that the plethora of ICT opportunities exposes individuals to risk contexts, necessitating media education to mitigate psychological and social consequences stemming from Internet risks.

Given curiosity’s fundamental role in motivation and learning and considering the widespread use of digital stories as educational tools from the preschool age, we pursued measuring preschoolers’ curiosity when interacting with digital stories. Using 129 toddlers and preschoolers as a sample, three groups (one for each class) were given different versions of the same digital story to listen to: interactive, non-interactive, and animated. Toddlers' verbal and nonverbal behaviors were utilized to quantify curiosity as a condition brought on by the app. The participants' verbal and nonverbal behaviors were recorded during the digital reading aloud. Every child's data was encoded at one-minute intervals to examine concurrent behavior, and the results were then compiled. The findings show that interactive presentation formats encourage more touching and language use but less noise production and that interaction and the creative use of hot spots in digital illustrations are key elements in piquing viewers' curiosity while contributing to the strengthening of the engagement to the activity and the cultivation of critical thinking, creativity, and imagination.

One of the ways to enhance and improve the quality of learning delivery is through the use of technology, particularly the Internet, which facilitates faster and easier access to information. This research aims to explore the degree to which factors such as digital literacy, metacognitive awareness, meaningful learning, habits of using smartphones, and personal learning competence are related to one another. Both the relationship between metacognitive awareness and personal learning competence, as well as the relationship between smartphone habits and personal learning competence, are moderated by a moderating variable known as the fear of missing out. Fear of missing out is a moderating variable. Structural equation modeling, specifically partial least squares, was employed to analyze data from 597 engineering students. SmartPLS version 4 was the tool used for this analysis. The study found that the moderating variable, fear of missing out, significantly impacts metacognitive awareness, learning personal competence, and smartphone habits, making it a crucial factor to investigate. This result is significant because it is a variable that influences the learning that students go through for their education and because it is an extremely important thing to investigate.

With the current rate of technological advancements, higher education institutions around the world are increasingly adopting a wide variety of technology-related approaches to instruction. One of the teaching strategies used on digital platforms that has been successfully and widely adopted in higher education institutions is blended learning (BL). The objective of this investigation is to provide a comprehensive examination of the research efforts on BL in the context of higher education (HE) over the past 20 years, including the rise in publications, the most cited scientific journals and sources, and the upcoming research topics. This paper uses bibliometric analysis with a dataset of 651 documents from Scopus data, including 638 authors from 95 countries published in 271 journal sources. The results of the study show that the top three countries for BL research in higher education are the United Kingdom, the United States, and Australia; the authors with the highest citation indexes are D. R. Garrison and B. Means, and the top two publishing sources are Education and Information Technologies and Internet and Higher Education. Based on the analysis, the main trends detected are (a) student participation and environment, (b) educational technology instructional innovation, (c) effective instructional strategies within the parameters of the COVID-19 pandemic, (d) effectiveness of evaluation in BL environments and (e) BL with Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and Learning Management System (LMS) in HE. These findings offer meaningful insights to early career researchers who consult the publications and research lists above, as well as to policy makers who develop suitable BL in HE policies.

In an era where diversity and digitalization significantly influence higher education, understanding and adapting to various learning preferences is crucial. This study comprehensively analyzes 394 scholarly articles from 1984 to 2022 using bibliometric methods, providing a dynamic overview of the research patterns in learning styles within higher education. We identified four stages of development during this period: 1984–1995 (Low-interest), 1996–2005 (Early development), 2006–2018 (Development), and 2019–2022 (Intensification). Our analysis highlights that the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia were the top three leading publishers of research on learning styles in higher education. The results reveal three main topics of publications: educational technology, learning environments, and subject behaviors. This research not only identifies emerging research topics but also underscores the importance of adapting instructional strategies to diverse learning styles to enhance educational outcomes in higher education.

Augmented reality technologies can create unique interactive learning environments for students with special educational needs that enrich the learning process and provide immediate feedback. This research analyzed the use of augmented reality in teaching digital literacy courses for primary school children with special educational needs. The study involved a quasi-experiment with participants using a mobile augmented reality application to assess its impacts on learning outcomes. The results showed the positive effects of augmented reality on student achievement. The results highlight the potential of augmented reality in inclusive education. In addition, the findings emphasize the importance of further research and development in this area and an increased use of augmented reality to improve the educational experience of students with disabilities. In light of the results, we conclude with recommendations for integrating augmented reality into educational programs and improving educational practices.

Augmented reality offers diverse potential applications for STEM education, enabling students to engage directly with virtual elements in real-time and providing them with immersive, natural experiences. This study conducted a bibliometric analysis of articles on this topic on the Scopus database to determine some quantitative information, such as general information about publications, countries, institutions, authors with the most contributions, and key trends in applying augmented reality technology in STEM education. An analysis of 201 studies published from 2005 to 2023 using Biblioshiny software and VOSviewer reveals that the United States leads in the number of studies conducted on this issue. Kryvyi Rih National University, Ukraine, has the most studies. The authors who contributed the most studies with the most citations on this issue are Lindner, C. and Rienow, A. from Ruhr University Bochum, Germany. Two primary research trends emerge, focusing on how Augmented Reality technology is utilized, particularly in STEM fields like Chemistry, which combines learning forms with other learning support tools and media such as mobile applications. Secondly, integrating augmented reality and virtual reality technologies into STEM programs at the university level, design of games, and virtual tools. This study offers important data for researchers looking to explore future applications of augmented reality technology within STEM education.

University dropout is a multidimensional and multicausal problem that affects every university around the world. The aim of this article is to conduct a bibliometric review of the scientific literature on the main factors that influence university dropouts in scientific publications between 2018 and 2022. The methodology is based on systematic searches using the Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus databases. We analysed 417 and 498 articles, respectively, applying inclusion/exclusion criteria. The main factors of university dropout were identified: problems in the academic and social world of students, student stress, health reasons, the role of teachers, and changes in the education system. Among the countries with the highest scientific output, Spain stands out, along with the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and China. This would provide a more complete view of the historical evolution and multifactorial causes of this educational phenomenon.

Sensory integration (SI)-based intervention programs aim to improve the motor performance of children with moderate autism spectrum disorder (MASD), which may contribute to the development of their gross and fine motor skills. This study aimed to explore the effectiveness of a SI-based training program in developing gross and fine motor skills in 70 children with MASD aged 6–9 years (M = 7.11, SD ± 1.19) and selected intentionally from a daycare center in Al-Ahsa in Saudi Arabia. The study used the quasi-experimental approach and followed the experimental design with two groups, which were randomly distributed and examined for equivalence. The study also used the Gross Motor Skills Scale (GMSS), the Fine Motor Skills Scale (FMSS), and the training program based on SI. The study found that the experimental group had significantly higher post-test scores in the GMSS and the FMSS than the control group, with these differences being statistically significant. However, no significant difference was observed between the post-test scores and the follow-up test scores within the experimental group, indicating stability in their performance over time. This indicates the effectiveness of the training program used in developing the targeted skills and the continuation of the training effect after the program’s application period. The study suggests that children should use SI-based training programs to enhance their motor skills.

Research fronts are dynamic, knowledge-driven clusters of scholarly activity that emerge in response to pressing problems and/or groundbreaking discoveries. Clarivate Analytics provided a valuable tool based on Citation Productivity and Trajectory (CPT) indicator, which successfully identified particularly hot research fronts on a global scale. To enhance the accuracy and comprehensiveness of identifying both active and emerging research trends, this study develops an extended Clarivate formulation incorporating a novel Impact Factor (IF) metric. The refined approach incorporates growth rates, publication productivity, and the average publication gap between published and citing publications. This method is applied to exploring key research fronts in the digital education ecosystem using bibliometric data from the Scopus database in the period of 2019-2023. The results reveal that artificial intelligence and online learning are the most prominent and influential fields, with virtual reality, blockchain, hybrid learning, and digital literacy representing fast-growing areas. By analyzing both quantitative and qualitative aspects, this work informs key stakeholders about the evolving priorities and trends in the digital educational landscape.

Global Citizenship Education (GCE) has emerged as a significant area of research over the last decade, reflected by the substantial volume of scientific publications dedicated to the topic. However, a bibliometric analysis of GCE utilizing the Scopus database has not yet been conducted. This study addresses this gap by analyzing GCE-related articles published in Scopus-indexed journals from 2004 to 2024, employing bibliometric techniques and VOSviewer software. A total of 1,075 articles were examined. The results indicate a marked increase in publication volume since 2016, highlighting a growing interest in GCE—notably, the United States and the United Kingdom lead in publications and international collaborations. The journal Globalisation, Societies and Education is the most prolific, with 70 published articles. Prominent authors include Yemini from Israel, with 540 citations, and Goren from the United Kingdom, with 445 citations. Co-citation analysis revealed distinct research interests, ranging from multicultural perspectives and GCE curriculum development to integrating GCE in the digital era and critically evaluating its objectives and challenges. Moreover, a co-occurrence analysis of keywords identified nine primary research topic clusters, including education for sustainable development, cosmopolitanism, higher education, and international education. The insights derived from this study are crucial for scholars and practitioners engaged in GCE, as they emphasize the importance of fostering international networks and collaborative efforts while encouraging the exploration of more inclusive GCE practices in the future.

This umbrella review aimed to synthesize variables that explain dropout among students in preschool, primary, secondary, and high school education. The study focused on peer-reviewed articles indexed in SCOPUS, Web of Science, and ERIC, identifying five systematic reviews that provided comprehensive insights. Key findings revealed individual factors, such as insufficient parental support, emotional and behavioral challenges, and substance use, play significant roles in influencing student dropout. Socioeconomic factors, including poverty, financial constraints, and social inequalities, were also identified as critical contributors. Additionally, institutional elements such as inadequate school infrastructure, insufficient teacher training, and a lack of culturally relevant resources emerged as barriers to student retention. This review highlights research gaps in political-legislative, sociocultural, and family determinants, longitudinal analyses, dropout interventions’ long-term effectiveness, and marginalized populations’ representation, limiting a comprehensive understanding of student dropout and effective policy development. Recommendations include targeted policies and interventions that foster inclusive and supportive educational environments, reduce inequities, and improve access to resources to minimize dropout rates among students in preschool, primary, secondary, and high school education.

The use of technology in education aims to improve students' problem-solving skills so that they have the skills needed by 21st century society in dealing with various kinds of challenges and problems. This study was carried out aiming to obtain the characteristics of augmented reality-based learning media for mathematics learning in student problem-solving skill, and obtain the results of the average difference in the problem-solving abilities of junior high school students. This research and development (R&D) study, employing the (Analyze, Design, Develop, Implement, and Evaluate) ADDIE model, investigated Augmented Reality (AR)-based learning media for mathematics to enhance junior high school students' problem-solving skills. The aim was to identify characteristics of effective AR media and assess their impact on problem-solving abilities. Quantitative data, collected from student problem-solving tests, were analyzed using a t-test in SPSS. The AR media featured virtual manipulation, virtual measurement tools, and real-world problem exploration. While the experimental group using AR showed a higher average problem-solving score compared to the control group using Problem-Based Learning (PBL), the difference was not statistically significant (t (df) = 0.638, Cohen's d = 0.0876). This lack of significance, despite the higher mean, is likely due to a small sample size and the limited integration timeframe, coupled with pre-existing skill variations. Future research should address these limitations to further explore the potential of AR in mathematics education.

This study analyzes trends, collaborations, and research developments on augmented reality (AR) in mathematics education using a bibliometric approach. Data were collected from the Scopus database on July 31, 2024, identifying 542 documents published between 2015 and 2024. After screening, 194 journal articles were selected for analysis. Using VOSviewer, the study produced visualizations related to document types, publication trends, journal sources, research subjects, institutions, countries, keywords, and author collaborations. The results show that 88.7% of the documents are journal articles, indicating that this topic is predominantly published in scholarly journals. Publication trends reveal significant growth since 2016, peaking in 2024, reflecting increasing global interest. Education Sciences and IEEE Access are among the top journal sources. Subject-wise, social sciences and computer science are the main disciplines exploring AR in mathematics education. Chitkara University (India) and Johannes Kepler University Linz (Austria) are leading institutions, while the United States, Malaysia, and Spain contribute the most publications. Keyword analysis shows rapid growth in research using terms such as "augmented reality" and "mathematics education," emphasizing the role of immersive technology in enhancing student engagement and conceptual understanding through visual and interactive learning. Influential authors like Lavicza, Mantri, and Haas highlight the importance of global collaboration. Based on a thematic analysis of the most-cited articles, this study proposes the AI Mathematical Education Impact and Outcome Framework. In conclusion, although research on AR in mathematics education has significantly advanced, further studies are needed to evaluate its effectiveness across varied educational contexts.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has revolutionized higher education. The rapid adoption of artificial intelligence in education (AIED) tools has significantly transformed educational management, specifically in self-directed learning (SDL). This study examines the factors influencing Indonesian higher education students' intention to adopt AIED tools for self-directed learning using a combination of the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) with additional theories. A total of 322 university students from diverse academic backgrounds participated in the structured survey. This study utilized machine learning it was Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) to analyze nine factors, including attitude (AT), subjective norms (SN), perceived behavioral control (PBC), optimism (OP), user innovativeness (UI), perceived usefulness (PUF), facilitating conditions (FC), perception towards ai (PTA), and intention (IT) with a total of 41 items in the questionnaire. The model demonstrated high predictive accuracy, with SN emerging as the most significant factor to IT, followed by AT, PBC, PUF, FC, OP, and PTA. User innovativeness was the least influential factor due to the lowest accuracy. This study provides actionable insights for educators, policymakers, and technology developers by highlighting the critical roles of social influence, supportive infrastructure, and student beliefs in shaping AIED adoption for self-directed learning (SDL). This research not only fills an important gap in the literature but also offers a roadmap for designing inclusive, student-centered AI learning environments that empower learners and support the future of SDL in digital education.