Spatial thinking has roles to facilitate learners to remember, understand, reason, and communicate objects and the connections among objects that are represented in space. This research aims to analyze the spatial thinking process of students in constructing new knowledge seen from the field-independent cognitive style learners based on Action-Process-Object-Schema (APOS) theory. APOS theory is used to explore spatial thinking processes which consist of mental structures of action, process, object, and schema. This research is qualitative research with an exploratory method. It provided the students' opportunity to solve problems alternately until the method found the most appropriate subjects for the research objectives. The subjects were 2 students of Mathematics Education in the fourth semester of Universitas Muria Kudus Indonesia. The data collection techniques were started by distributing the validated and reliable spatial thinking questions, the cognitive style question, and the interview. The applied data analysis consisted of data reduction, presentation, and conclusion. The findings showed (1) spatial thinking process of holistic-external representation typed learners were indicated by the representative thinking element, abstract-illustrative figure expression to communicate and complete the tasks correctly, (2) spatial thinking process of the holistic-internal representation typed learners were indicated by the representative means, having ideas, connecting with the previous knowledge in the forms of symbols and numbers, and finding the final results correctly although incomplete.

The purpose of doctoral education is not only to produce a thesis but also to develop graduates who are highly competent in research, publications and the norms and values of being a researcher. Only a handful of studies have examined early-career academics’ perceptions of doing research at the doctoral level. This exploratory qualitative study sought to fill the gap and contribute to understanding of factors contributing to early career academics’ research capability development. Semi-structured interviews were used to explore in-depth the issues concerning research, publication, supervision, and networking among early career academics. The data were collected from 19 early-career academics in the first year of their career, who are attached with different universities and in different disciplines in Malaysia. The findings from the thematic analysis identified that supervision, individual’s participation in scholarly research activities, and institutional formal learning supported the development of the participants’ research capabilities. Although the PhD programme lay emphasis on independent learning, it should be seen as a process that occurs in phases; hence, the research courses offered and support from the supervisor are important to assist the transition to becoming an independent scholar. Based on the findings of the study, it is recommended that universities be more sensitive to the demands and expectations of academic career so that the PhD programmes offered do not merely focus on research but also develop the skills required of future academics at university.

English teachers had to retrain and build a new normal in order to prepare for an online classroom while keeping their teaching pedagogy and professional identity as a result of the sudden changes brought by the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic in education. In this study, the effect of English teachers' professional identity transformations, attitudes toward online teaching was explored. The study's sample comprises 130 English as a foreign language (EFL) lecturers from a state and a foundation university in Turkey. The research data was gathered from a questionnaire, the Teacher Professional Identity scale, and a semi-structured interview with 12 volunteers. Qualitative data collected via semi-structured interviews were apportioned into pattern coding and analyzed through content analysis. EFL lecturers did not appear to be properly prepared for their online pedagogical and technological difficulties, which had a deeply corrosive effect on teachers' professional identities as they shift away from face-to-face education. The results showed that participants who were educated on EduTech during their undergraduate education or as professional development affected their perceptions of professional identity throughout the transition to online language teaching. Future studies can broaden the field of study by making use of exploratory action research, awareness of the teaching community, and continued professional development.

Students are more likely to obtain correct solutions in solving derivative problems. Even though students can complete it correctly, they may not necessarily be able to explain the solution well. Cognition and communication by the students will greatly affect the subsequent learning process. The aim of this study is to describe students’ commognition of routine aspects in understanding derivative tasks for heterogeneous groups of cognitive styles-field dependent and independent. This qualitative study involved six third-semester mathematics education students in the city of Palu, Indonesia. We divided the subjects into two groups with field-independent (FI) and field-dependent (FD) cognitive styles. The first group consisted of two FI students and one FD student, and the second group consisted of two FD students and one FI student. Moreover, the subjects also have relatively the same mathematical ability and feminine gender. Data was collected through task-based observations, focused group discussions, and interviews. We conducted data analysis in 3 stages, namely data condensation, data display, and conclusion drawing-verification. The results showed that the subjects were more likely to use routine ritual discourse, namely flexibility on the exemplifying category, by whom the routine is performed on classifying and summarizing categories, applicability on inferring category, and closing conditional on explaining category. The result of ritual routine is a process-oriented routine through individualizing. This result implies that solving the questions is not only oriented towards the correct answers or only being able to answer, but also students need to explain it well.

Numeracy is one of the essential competencies that the objectives of teaching math to primary students should be towards. However, many research findings show that the problem of “innumeracy” frequently exists at primary schools. That means children still do not feel at home in the world of numbers and operations. Therefore, the paper aims to apply the realistic mathematics education (RME) approach to tackling the problem of innumeracy, in the case of teaching the multiplication of two natural numbers to primary students. We conducted a pedagogical experiment with 46 grade 2 students who have not studied the multiplication yet. The pedagogical experiment lasted in six lessons, included seven activities and nine worksheets which are designed according to fundamental principles of RME by researchers. This is mainly a qualitative study. Based on data obtained from classroom observations and students’ response on worksheets, under the perspective of RME, the article pointed out how mathematization processes took place throughout students' activities, their attitudes towards math learning, and their learning outcomes. The study results found that students were more interested in math learning and understood the concepts of multiplication of two natural numbers.

The purposes of this study were to explore factors and indicators of life and career skills and to develop a life and career skills in the 21st century test for undergraduate students. This research employed a mixed-method study adopting an exploratory design: instrument development model to generate research tools. This study was divided into two phases; Phase 1 was to explore factors and indicators of life and career skills in 21st century, by using a qualitative method to analyze relevant documents; Phase 2 was the development of a life and career skills in 21st century test by adopting a quantitative method to collect data from students studying in 12 universities of the north-eastern region of Thailand via the test. In the second phase, the data were analyzed by descriptive statistics and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) Results revealed that the skills consisted of 6 factors and 35 indicators, and the test comprised 105 items. The quality of the test has been examined by five expertise, the reliability of all test items is acceptable, and all 6 factors demonstrated good construct validity. Factor loadings of six factors were 0.7940 -1.7816. This study can be implemented to measure the life and career skills of undergraduate students in any university to obtain data for establishing a policy and plans for maximizing students’ potential to achieve their careers and a happy living in 21st century after their graduation.

Online learning during the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has awakened and affirmed the necessity of learning based on digital technology. The article was aimed to analyze the effectiveness of online learning at bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees of Islamic Religious Education as a reference to develop a learning pattern post-COVID-19 pandemic. The research employed a mixed-method design with a concurrent triangulation model. The samples were taken using stratified random and purposive sampling. Meanwhile, the data were collected through questionnaires, in-depth interviews, and forum group discussion. A descriptive analysis and one-way analysis of variance were used to analyze the quantitative data, while interpretative descriptive for the qualitative data. The research showed that online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic at the bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees of Islamic Religious Education have been effective. In detail, online learning at the doctoral degree was the most effective among all. On the other hand, face-to-face learning is still necessary. Therefore, the learning pattern developed post-COVID-19 pandemic combines face-to-face and online learning (hybrid learning). The formulation is adjusted to the characteristics, educational purpose and orientation, level of ability, readiness, and learning autonomy of the students at each educational level.

This study is an endeavour to explicate the dissonance of the linguistic quality outcome of study abroad (SA) experiences by exploring the second language (L2) motivation of six academic sojourners in Manchester. A person-in-context approach revealed that developing intimate relationships with ‘native-speakers’, providing L2-mediated interaction opportunities with international students, and social approval were key determinants of the extent to which SA students were invested in social practices. Such social engagements were found to stem from second language motivation that is part of identity construction process. In addition, the thematic analysis of the narrative inquiries suggests that the global status of the English language defies the traditional conceptualisations of L2 motivation as most participants’ motivations were formed despite their negative or neutral attitudes towards the English community. The findings also endorse the role of the other as a robust motivational source by which learners can replenish their motivation stream, leading to social identity investment to construct their ideological selves. The paper concludes with a recommendation to re-interpret the conceptualisation of the Ideal L2 Self system because ‘native-speakers’ are rarely the closest parallels to L2 learners, and it should incorporate explicit intrinsic orientations. Furthermore, language institutions in SA contexts should direct their focus on establishing conversation clubs and hosting social events for SA students to provide a safe space for their identities to be developed, enacted and reconstructed.

This study aimed to explore the perceived factors that influenced the success and challenges experienced when taking licensure examination among Bachelor of Science in Criminology graduates of a state university in the Philippines who failed in the Criminologist Licensure Examinations (CLE). Descriptive-correlational research design was utilized to analyze quantitative data, and Colaizzi’s descriptive phenomenology was used for the thematic analysis of qualitative data. The quantitative findings revealed that home and family factor has a high influence on the success in CLE, while student factor, school factor, review center factor, and personal factor have average influence. Further, ten clusters of themes emerged as factors that influence the success in CLE. Among them were interest and focus on the program, and availability of qualified and dedicated faculty. Among the themes that emerged as challenges were lack of preparedness for the exam because of one’s work, and personal and social pressures. There is a significant difference on the respondents’ perception towards the factors that influence the success in CLE when they are grouped according to sex. Regarding the challenges associated with preparing for and taking the CLE, a significant difference is only observed when respondents are grouped according to their civil status. Generally, married respondents have higher weighted means than the single ones. This implies that the identified challenges affected married respondents more than the single ones. These results can be used to make policies and initiate programs that would enhance graduates’ success in the exam by providing appropriate interventions and early remediations.

The following article is a qualitative study that analyses the perception of parents and high school students regarding teaching in times of Coronavirus disease COVID-19, with the idea of recognizing the facilitators and barriers for the teaching-learning process in the pandemic. The above, in the understanding that due to the sudden appearance of SARS-CoV-2, educational systems around the world had to adapt to virtual teaching, as a result of the confinement to which the population has been subjected during the year 2020 and a good part of the year 2021. The research is based on the interpretative-comprehensive paradigm, with a qualitative methodology, which considered the realization of four focus groups with students and four focus groups with secondary school parents, from two public high schools located in the province of Talca, Maule region, Chile. The findings of the study are related to the adverse effects of the pandemic on student learning, as a result of connectivity difficulties, and the emotional impact on the quality of life of young people and their families. On the other hand, learning at home is related to limited pedagogical strategies and evaluative aspects that do not allow verifying the real learning of the students.

Shortly after the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic began, studies on the challenges faced by tertiary students during Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) became available. However, the data sets were harvested early, as many countries began implementing ERT in response to the pandemic in March 2020. Many recent studies have failed to distinguish between the challenges faced by students enrolled in the laboratory and non-laboratory courses. There is still a dearth of literature on the difficulties encountered by students enrolled in non-laboratory courses following the first year of ERT implementation. The purpose of this paper was to examine the various challenges faced by tertiary students enrolled in non-laboratory courses following the conclusion of the first year of ERT implementation. Contextualized in two state-owned higher education institutions in northern Luzon, this study employed a fundamental qualitative approach, with focus group discussions (FGDs) serving as the primary data collection technique. Five major themes emerged from the FGDs with 42 purposively selected tertiary students. These themes presented in the spider web illustration include (1) student-focused challenges, (2) instructional material-related challenges, (3) instructor-emanating challenges, (4) technology-related challenges, and (5) student support-related challenges. This article concludes that these issues must be dealt with immediately to facilitate the implementation of ERT in non-laboratory courses. These difficulties may also be dimensions of concerns about distance education, particularly in non-urban areas of the Philippines. The themes also provide some actual pictures of the student challenges in the initial year of ERT in college. This paper highlighted some implications for pedagogy and educational management, as well as future research directions.

The worldwide pandemic Coronavirus disease, affected every aspect of people’s lives due to being locked at their homes, therefore many difficulties began to appear, especially in education. Scholars were the leading group that has been affected the most due to the online lessons that began from one day to another, without any kind of previous training specifically in these types of contexts at home. According to some national diagnostical studies, most of the students could not achieve the minimum educational objectives in mathematics and language, which are the essential subjects in Chilean education. In this study, in which qualitative phenomenology analysis was used, the aim was to reveal the current state of students after a whole year of online lessons in terms of personal technological use and personal perceptions about e-learning. In this study, in which the criterion sampling was used, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 adolescents from different sorts of schools who experienced online lessons using their previous personal knowledge in Information and Communication Technologies. The data were analyzed in Nvivo node tree, which revealed six main themes that define the experience and personal perception of the participants: adaptation to the new order, learning by their own, how to use better the technology, use of social media, new ways of personal knowledge sharing, importance of classmates. It is believed that the results obtained from this study will contribute to schools’ view of learning and teaching education in the 21st century and to improve students’ experiences in online lessons.

Writing is very important for learners; it is a dynamic and creative skill. Although studies on students’ problems when writing a dissertation among Native Speakers (NS) are widely done, studies on English as a Foreign Language (EFL) are limited, especially those which examine problems faced while writing dissertations among Ph.D. EFL learners, in particular, Jordanian Ph.D. candidates. Studies on the supervisors' perspectives of writing a dissertation are scarce among EFL learners, particularly Arab learners. This study aims at focusing on supervisors' perspectives of writing dissertations among Jordanian Ph.D. students who are studying abroad. This study is a qualitative case study. The researchers interviewed nine Malaysian supervisors who supervised 21 Jordanian Ph.D. candidates. The results show that six main themes emerged from the supervisors' perspectives, and they are grammatical mistakes, lack of vocabulary and verbs reporting, personal effects, lack of motivation, writing apprehension, and the problem with generic thesis structure. This paper contributes with a comprehensive analysis of the theoretical perspectives on problems Ph.D. students face when writing a dissertation. The study also fills in the gap in the field of supervisors' perspectives of writing a dissertation. Based on the results found, the researchers suggest a number of recommendations and further research that might help supervisors understand the reasons behind such difficulties.

Most research has examined flipped learning within the context of face-to-face (F2F) instruction. However, previous research has not effectively explored the possibility of how online synchronous flipped learning influences pre-service teachers (PSTs) in teacher education programs during Coronavirus disease (COVID-19). Recognizing the gap in the literature, this paper explored three aspects of online synchronous flipped learning by understanding 1) PSTs' learner engagement, 2) self-directed learning, and 3) learner satisfaction in a Korean university. The data was collected from Korean PST's interviews, reflection notes, and course evaluations. The thematic analysis was used to analyze qualitative data sources. The study findings showed that PSTs favored a synchronous online FL because it encouraged them to engage in various collaborative activities through Zoom breakout sessions. Also, pre-class materials from online FL can positively enhance the PSTs' self-directed learning process. Based on these findings, this study provides suggestions on how to effectively implement online synchronous flipped learning in teacher education programs.

The purpose of the study was to identify what neuropsychological effect online learning had on psychology students and how it could be moderated. The study was descriptive and combined qualitative and quantitative methods to address the research questions. The study relied on three phases such as baseline study, experiment, and reporting. The experiment utilised neuropsychology tests adopted from the NeurOn platform. It was found that the Psychology students’ perceptions of e-learning and their emotional reaction to them were found not to be appreciative. The practices in breathing exercises, meditation, or yoga were proved to be able to moderate the impact of online learning on the experimental group students’ attentional capacities, memory processes, and cognition abilities. The above findings were supported by the results obtained for the neuropsychology tests and the experimental group students’ self-reflections yielded from the use of the MovisensXS App. The students confirmed that breathing exercises, meditation, or yoga reduced study stress and burnout caused by e-learning and improved their academic performance. The focus group online discussion also showed that integration of breathing exercises, meditation, and yoga helped the experimental group students keep emotional balance, concentrate on their studies easier, remember more information, and meet deadlines in completing assignments. The education scientists are suggested to study how the e-learning curriculum could be reshaped so that it used relaxation practices on regular basis.

The effects of international phonetic alphabet (IPA) instruction on English as a foreign language (EFL) adult learners’ pronunciation have been well-recognized. However, not many studies on the topic were conducted in the Vietnamese context. Therefore, the current study aims to investigate (1) the impact of IPA learning on Vietnamese EFL adult learners’ pronunciation and (2) adult learners’ perceptions of the effects of learning the IPA system on their pronunciation. The study was designed as an experimental study, following a mixed-methods approach, using the pre-and-post-tests, questionnaires, and interviews to collect quantitative and qualitative data. Thirty-eight adult learners took part in this investigation; they were divided into two groups, nineteen in the control and nineteen in the experimental group. The experimental study lasted ten weeks before the questionnaires and interviews were administered with the participants in the experimental group. The results demonstrated a significant improvement in adult learners’ pronunciation in the experimental group. The participants in the experimental group also highly perceived the positive effects of learning the IPA system on their pronunciation. Pedagogical implications and suggestions were presented at the end of the paper.

This study aims to explore the pattern of external representation of suspending objects in a static fluid. The study used a qualitative descriptive method involving 57 elementary, junior, senior school, and university students. Data collection implemented a 30-item test covering the dominant context of suspending and partially floating and sinking.  Some of phenomenographic steps were adapted in data analysis. Based on the data analysis, it can be concluded that there is a dominant external representation pattern, where there is a simplification of the depiction of suspending objects. Suspending position tends to be locked in a limited area, namely in the middle of the depth of the liquid. In the context of suspending objects' cuts, the cuts were generally represented by an upward shifting pattern. Factors that influence the pattern of representation are the involvement of intuition in conceptualizing the phenomena presented, and the conceptual aspect of density has not been integrated into the reasoning process for compiling external representations, both diagrams, and texts. Research limitation is presented in this article.

Cognitive processes are procedures for using existing knowledge to combine it with new knowledge and make decisions based on that knowledge. This study aims to identify the cognitive structure of students during information processing based on the level of algebraic reasoning ability. This type of research is qualitative with exploratory methods. The data collection technique used began by providing a valid and reliable test instrument for algebraic reasoning abilities for six mathematics education student programs at the Islamic University of Sultan Agung Indonesia. Subjects were selected based on the level of upper, middle, and lower algebraic reasoning abilities. The results showed that (1) students with the highest level of algebraic reasoning ability meet the logical structure of Logical Reasoning which shows that students at the upper level can find patterns and can generalize; (2) Students at the intermediate level understand the cognitive structure of Symbolic Representations, where students can make connections between knowledge and experience and look for patterns and relationships but have difficulty making rules and generalizations; (3) students at lower levels understand the cognitive structure of Comparative Thinking, where students are only able to make connections between prior knowledge and experience.

The higher educational institution needs a group of dedicated and committed lecturers to endure the institution during these turbulent times. As the organizational commitment reflects the self-identification of an employee with the organization, it has far-reaching implications on multifarious aspects in the organization. This present study investigated whether job satisfaction could mediate the relationship between learning organization and organizational commitment. A total of 452 lecturers from Heilongjiang province in China participated in this study. Structural equation modelling showed that job satisfaction significantly mediated the relationship between the dimensions of learning organization and organization, specifically on the effect of continuous learning, connection, and strategic leadership. Job satisfaction is also found to be a stronger predictor of organizational commitment than learning organization. These findings are discussed thoroughly and recommended a holistic plan to be devised that could strengthen learning organization and job satisfaction of lecturers in various aspects of the organization.

The Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has caused an inevitable shift from face-to-face to distance learning, a phenomenon known as panic-gogy. Parents are the main students’ companions while studying at home. Although various studies show the constraints in this condition, few employ phenomenology that accurately describes people’s experience regarding a situation. Therefore, this study aimed to describe parents’ experience during distance learning mathematics using a phenomenology approach. The participants comprised 71 35-50-year-old parents of junior high school students. A Google form with open-ended questions was used as the main instrument in data collection. Data were analyzed using NVivo-12-assisted thematic analysis in coding, while source triangulation was used to strengthen the data trustworthiness. The results showed that students did not learn the content well due to poor explanations by the teacher. Furthermore, they did not study well at home due to signal constraints and quota limitations. This study recommends blended learning by combining limited face-to-face and online learning.