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.

Achieving educational goals is based on the skills and competence of teachers; therefore, professional development of teachers is important to policy and decision-makers. Worldwide, the percentage of teachers who leave the profession within their first years of teaching is high therefore, professional support is essential to ease on their integration. Previous research indicates a positive and significant correlation between teachers' self-efficacy and their attitudes toward the teaching profession. Our study included three hypotheses: 1) teachers' pedagogical applications serve as mediators for the relationship between teachers' self-efficacy and their attitudes toward the profession; 2) participating in a professional development school (PDS) training program interacts with teachers' self-efficacy in predicting their attitudes toward the profession; and, 3) participation in a PDS training program will positively affect the two variables. A close and open-ended questionnaire was replied by 300 novice teachers, some of whom participated in the PDS program and others who did not. Findings indicate that the relationship between teachers' sense of self-efficacy and their attitudes towards the teaching profession was partially mediated by: applying constructivist pedagogical practices; matching to differences between learners; collaboration between fellow teachers; accountability; planning and teaching management; and academy-community relationships. Participation in a PDS program was not found as a moderator variable for this relationship, but novice teachers who participated in this program had a significant higher sense of self-efficacy and more positive attitudes towards the teaching profession. Findings are important for designing novice teacher training programs with an emphasis on the implementation of specific pedagogical practices.

Aggression in early childhood is considered to a common problem. Identification, reduction and prevention of aggression, especially in early childhood are also considered prevalent. Preschool teachers are known as one of the most important people in children’s lives as they are the first ones to meet the child after parents. Therefore, they hold an important role in identifying, reducing and preventing child aggression observed in early childhood. The purpose of the present study is to examine the knowledge and the awareness levels of preschool teachers about aggression and aggressive behaviours. The study is based on phenomenological approach, as one of the qualitative research designs. A semi-structured interview form, prepared for the study based on expert opinions, was applied to the participants. On the light of the findings from the preliminary findings, the related form was applied to a second group of teachers over the internet. Besides, an additional scale consisting of the items of two different instruments directed to determine the aggressive behaviours of preschool children were formed and applied to the second group of participants. The last scale, which was prepared depending on the findings obtained from the second group of teachers, was applied to a third group of participants because the first two participant groups could not recognize and define relational aggression. The relevant themes and sub-themes were created from the data obtained and the findings were discussed within the scope of the literature. According to the results of the study, it was seen that preschool teachers generally defined aggression as physical and verbal harm, and similarly, aggressive behaviours were categorized under physical aggression and verbal aggression types. It was determined that teachers generally recognized relational aggression when they saw the items related to it in the scale. However, they hardly emphasized it while they were defining aggression. So, it can be said that preschool teachers have limited knowledge and awareness of relational aggression as they recognize it only when they see it but can neither define nor name it. The results are discussed and some suggestions are recommended.

The research investigated the effect of socioeconomic status, gender, perceived parental influences, teacher affective support, classroom instruction and previous achievement on students’ attitude towards mathematics. The comparison of these effects was also done between urban and rural school students.  This research employed a cross-sectional quantitative design based on a structural equation modelling approach. The sample consisted of 808 students from ten secondary schools in Sabah, three of which were urban and seven were rural schools. Findings showed positive relationships exist between perceived parental influences (r = .231), teacher affective support (r = .242), classroom instruction (r = .439), and previous achievement (r = .284) with students’ attitude towards mathematics. The multigroup analysis for urban and rural students showed similar results as the whole student group. However, for urban students, classroom instruction (r = 0.352) and previous achievement (r = -0.363) had the greatest impact on attitude towards mathematics. For rural students, the highest impact on attitude towards mathematics was from classroom instruction (r = 0.452) and teacher affective support (r = 0.246). The least impact for both groups was perceived parental influence. This study implied that factors affected students’ attitude towards mathematics in rural and urban secondary students are different

Young pupils engage with technology daily, however, the use that preschool teachers make of technologies and their level of digital expertise are largely unknown. The objective of this study was to determine how these teachers make use of ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) and the frequency with which they use them, as well as to explore the sociodemographic and professional factors related to the different uses. 477 preschool teachers from Spain took part in a survey. The questionnaire, validated by experts, covered the use of ICT as a teaching-learning tool. Three different analyses were carried out, a principal component analysis and a descriptive analysis to determine the type and intensity of use and a multivariate analysis of variance to explore their relationships with sociodemographic and professional variables. The findings defined eight distinct uses of ICT, which seemed to be related to different factors. Teachers did not employ these technologies openly and consistently in their classrooms, but instead used them for occasional tasks that were administrative and bureaucratic in nature. They manifest a limited ICT use for assessment of pupil and for communication and exchange of ideas, information and materials. Instead, ICT were widely used to prepare classroom work (planning, classroom posters…) and as classroom support as a learning tool (routines, games, to record audios…). Among the studied variables, the more significant were teaching experience and type of centre. We discuss the need to advocate for continuous and comprehensive training on the educational potential of these digital resources.

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.

This study aims to examine and describe the effect of the community of inquiry (CoI) learning model and learning styles on students' social skills. The sample used was a student of the faculty of education IAIM Bima Indonesian totaling 114 people, consisting of two experimental groups with 56 students and two control groups were 58 students. The community of inquiry (CoI) learning model was applied in the experimental group whereas the control group applied a cooperative learning model (comparison). This research is a quasi-experiment in which the analysis of prerequisites is applied; normality used the normality QQ plot and homogeneity of variance test used Levene’s test. Research data were analyzed by applying the Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). The results of show that there are significant differences in the social skills of students who use the community of inquiry (CoI) learning model with cooperative learning model, there are differences in social skills of students in terms of the dimensions of learning styles of visual, auditory and kinesthetic, there is also an interaction between community of inquiry (CoI) learning model and learning styles on students' social skills.

This study aims to investigate the impact of using a LEGO Education program, specifically the “MoreToMath” kit, on the achievement of Deferent Levels of Elementary Students. The quantitative research design was used in this research study, and the participants were comprised of 120 elementary school students in the 2nd grade, in Amman, Jordan. A quasi-experimental research method and the MANCOVA were used, and a study tool to measure achievement was developed by the researcher for which the validity and reliability of achievement were verified. The results of the study show that there was a statistically significant improvement (α ≤0.05) in the achievement of the experimental study group, that studied using LEGO education, over the control group. There is also a statistically significant difference (α ≤ 0.05) between the arithmetic means of the three sub-groups of students’ previous achievement levels— high, middle, and low— and by using the Least Significant Differences (LSD) test we notice that there are significant differences between the high and low sub-groups, as well as between the middle and low. However, that there are no significant differences between the high and middle level sub-groups; and there is also no statistically significant interaction between the groups (experimental, control) and the levels of pre-achievement seen in the post-achievement levels. The study results indicate that the use of new technological tools, like the “MoreToMath” kit, may be beneficial in teaching mathematics as they tend to motivate students, and can lead to higher achievement for elementary students of different mathematics aptitude levels.

This study aims at exploring the problem of the readiness and competence of new teachers to teach in primary schools. This study specifically focuses on identifying the readiness of new teachers to conduct teaching professionally, and analyzing their competence in conducting teaching. This study employs a mixed-method research design with data collected from two different approaches: a qualitative approach by conducting interviews and observation, and a quantitative approach by conducting a survey. The data were collected from lecturers, graduate teachers working as teachers, graduate teachers working not as teachers, and users of graduate teachers. The results of data collection and analysis were made into several themes. The results showed that the majority of graduates were ready to join the workforce as professional teachers with the risk that they had to accept the lack of welfare and legitimacy as unprofessional teachers because they had to attend further professional education programs. The education provided by the lecturers during their study in their institution in the aspects of knowledge and skills in the field of study and pedagogy became the foundation for new teachers in starting their careers as professional teachers in schools. A good educational process had produced teachers who have competencies with good categories in various aspects.

Teacher education has been innovated in Brunei to support the ongoing inclusive education and curriculum reforms. This survey investigated the development of essential instructional skills in initial Brunei trainee teachers. The sample consisted of 109 student teachers (71 females and 38 males). Significant mean scores (Mean ≥ 4, p< .05) and 95% confidence intervals were used to identify the levels of proficiency and enablers of success in teaching. Participants were proficient on 15 of the 28 skills measured by the Teacher Behaviors Checklist (Approachable; Confident; Effective communicator; Encourages; Enthusiastic; Flexible; Good listener; Humble; Prepared; Professional; Rapport; Respectful; Sensitive; Striving to be a better teacher; Understanding). From independent groups, T-tests and One-Way ANOVA analyses, other significant trends in participants’ performance emerged at p< .05 level of evaluation. Females scored highest on Humble and Realistic expectations while males scored highest on Understanding. Trainee teachers aged 31-35 scored highest on: Promoting critical thinking; and Providing constructive feedback, than counterparts. Participants with higher degrees (e.g. Master of Arts) scored higher on Authoritative skills than those with lower degrees (e.g. Bachelor of Arts). Trainees with teaching experience scored significantly higher on: Accessible; Knowledge about the subject matter; and Technological competence, than those with no experience. The findings suggest the need to help pre-service teachers to gain proficiency in all teacher skills to improve the quality of education in the country. Further research was recommended.