The study developed and standardized an Inventory for measuring Students’ Integration into University Academic Culture named Inventory for Students’ Integration into University Academic Culture (ISIUAC). The increase in dropout rates, substance use, cultism and other deviant behaviours in Nigerian universities makes it necessary for one to ask the extent to which university students are integrated into the university academic culture. This necessitates the development of standardized instrument for the assessment of students’ integration into university academic culture. The Study employed an instrumentation design in which a five point scale inventory were developed and standardized. An initial draft of 60 item instrument was developed and standardized. After corrections a 58 item instrument emerged and was administered to 500 University students. The data collected were subjected to factor analysis. The result from factor analysis showed that 27 items loaded well on three factors with minimum loading of 035.  The 27 items were administered to 1,000 students to establish norms. The norm for the entire instrument was 105.19, the norms of male and female students were 100.96 and 109.21 respectively.  Cronbach alpha statistics was used to establish the reliability of the instrument, its result shows an internal consistency of 0.926 for the 27 items. Hypotheses were tested using t-test statistics; the result shows that there is a significant difference between the norms of male and female students. The manual of the ISIUAC shows the administration and scoring procedure of the inventory and its psychometric properties. The instrument ISIUAC is recommended therefore for assessing students’ integration into the university academic culture.

Scientific literacy has been increasingly considered a major goal of science education. While textbooks remain the most widespread tools for pursuing this goal within classrooms, they have been slow to adapt to the most recent epistemological paradigms, often still conveying distorted views of science and technology. Accordingly, we present herein a theoretical framework specifically intended to highlight the potential of textbooks to promote students’ scientific literacy. It is additionally argued that, often, the misconceptions conveyed by textbooks represent obstacles to the acquisition of a fair image of science and, therefore, to the acquisition of scientific literacy. Finally, a textbook analysis is suggested.

This exploratory study is concerned about the extent to which a sample of 163 pre-school, primary and secondary Brazilian school teachers, expressed their opinion on how neuroscience might help their teaching and pupils´ learning. Evaluation instruments for Brazilian pupils were analysed. Two questionnaires were completed by the teachers. Results of a quantitative analysis indicated that in general teachers believe that neuroscience may contribute to the teaching and learning of their subject matter. An outline for an elective neuroscience and education course is presented. Educational implications are discussed.

Creativity is regarded as one of the cornerstones for economic and social progress in every society. There are two possible ways to get creative people to work for an enterprise or community. The first is by attracting creative employees by good working conditions – a solution for those who can afford such an approach. For communities that are not so rich, the only solution is to foster creativity by education and by helping small and medium enterprises to create products based on creative ideas and innovations. In Slovenia, proposals for nourishing creativity and innovations emerge from the government thus forgetting that creativity does not start at University or on the first day of employment. To increase creativity, immediate action should be taken throughout the educational system, recognizing that society needs not only creative artists but scientists, economists and engineers as well. Through the analysis of the legislation, syllabi and textbooks, it can be recognized that they do not promote or even allow creativity in science education; even more, they can be regarded as creativity killers. In such a way key documents and teaching resources are placing creative science teachers in the position of guerrillas in a battle against prevailing teaching methods influenced by highstakes external exams or measurable outcomes. To improve science creativity, the legislation should be changed to give creativity appropriate value, and teachers must be educated to use methods that increase creativity in students, with the aim of producing open minds that will be able to work in a creative way.

Emerging evidence indicates that culture influences pupils learning of science. However, the influence of culture on science learning is usually not considered when developing science curricular for both primary and secondary schools. This study investigated the extent to which primary and secondary school pupils believe in cultural interpretations of the physical phenomenon of ‘heat’ associated with anger and the influence of education level, ethnic communities and gender on cultural beliefs. Cross-sectional survey research design was used. The target population was Standard Seven, Form one and Form Three pupils in ten districts selected from Nyanza, Rift Valley, Central, Eastern and Coast Provinces in Kenya. The ten districts were selected purposively to represent 10 different ethnic communities from the five provinces. A total of 2837 secondary and 625 primary school pupils participated. The pupils were drawn from 15 primary and 31 secondary schools .A questionnaire was used to gather information from pupils. Both qualitative and quantitative techniques were used in analyzing data. Hypotheses were tested using the chi square ( X 2) statistic at α = 0.05 level of significance. Some of the results obtained give statistically significant relationship between pupils’ beliefs in cultural interpretations of scientific phenomenon of heat associated with anger and the communities where they come from. This implies that such beliefs are confined to specific communities studied. There appears to be no significant association between pupils’ beliefs in cultural interpretations of the scientific phenomenon of heat and level of education in some of the communities. The implication is that education reduces beliefs in cultural interpretations in such communities but does not eradicate such beliefs. There was also no statistically significant association between pupils’ beliefs in cultural interpretations of the scientific phenomenon of heat and gender, implying that both boys and girls equally believe in cultural interpretations. The findings from this study inform curriculum developers of some of the cultural beliefs that are likely to influence the learning of science. It is recommended that teachers discuss cultural interpretations of scientific concepts before introducing them in their lessons.

It can be said that effective development of intercultural sensitivity depends on the regulations and practices in the curriculum. Integrated program implementations are seen as one of the ways of regulation. In the study, a nested integration model was used in a single discipline. In this context, scientific research methods are considered as a discipline, and the achievements of this discipline and intercultural sensitivity development activities are integrated. Understanding different cultures correctly and not being prejudiced are very important for the development of intercultural sensitivity. Scientific research methods course provides students with scientific attitudes and behaviors. In this course, it is thought that students will be able to develop sensitivity by examining different cultures with scientific attitudes and behaviors. In this context, it is aimed to reveal the effectiveness of intercultural sensitization development activities integrated with scientific research methods course gains. The quasi-experimental design with a pretest-posttest and a control group was used in the study. The study group comprised of 86 second-grade students in the English Teacher Training Department. In order to measure the intercultural sensitivities of the students before and after the test procedure, the five-point likert type “Intercultural Sensitivity Scale” developed by Chen and Starosta and adapted to Turkish by Bulduk, Tosun and Ardic was used as data collection tool. It is concluded that the curriculum of scientific research methods integrated with intercultural sensitivity development activities is effective in developing students' intercultural sensitivities.

The purpose of this study is to determine whether or not teachers’ lifelong learning tendencies vary by gender, professional field, educational level of service, professional seniority, and frequency of reading a book, magazine, and newspaper. The study employs a descriptive research model. Its population consists of primary teachers and field teachers working in the central district of Kayseri province, located in the middle part of Turkey, in the 2015-2016 academic year. The study group consists of 380 teachers chosen from this population through stratified sampling. The data were collected through Personal Information Form and Lifelong Learning Tendency Scale developed by Diker-Coskun. The obtained data were analyzed via SPSS 20.00 at 0.05 significance level. The study revealed that the teachers working in the middle part of Turkey have low lifelong learning tendencies. Also, the study determined that the teachers’ lifelong learning tendencies significantly vary by gender, professional field, educational level of service, and frequency of reading a book, magazine, and newspaper, but professional seniority is not a factor that leads to a significant difference in lifelong learning tendency.

The article reveals the problem of empirical research of training higher education institutions teachers in the context of the master’s degree programme. This study specifies and adapts the methods of diagnostics, criteria for conducting teacher training which are reasonable, psychologically and pedagogically approved and could be implemented in the institutions of higher education of different profiles. It was found out that the training of a teacher within the boundaries of the master’s degree programme of institutions of higher education is an actual task of three-level training of a specialist in Ukraine and requires a differentiated approach for institutions of higher education of various profiles. The components of the programme, based on their comparative characteristics, the status of teacher training in higher education institutions of different profiles with the application of certain criteria, indicators and levels were determined. Comparative analysis of the results of determining the levels of activity empathy and pedagogical reflection formation at the final stage of the study showed objective differences in teacher training in the context of the master’s degree programme of institutions of higher education of different profiles. The perspective directions of the problem under consideration are the study of the didactic conditions of effective teacher training for the master's degree in higher education and the development of the Concept of master’s training in higher education institutions on this basis, the analysis of the influence of the main factors on the formation of a teacher of a higher educational institution in the context of a master’s degree programme, in the profile professional training.

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.

This research aims to find out: (1) the more effective learning model on students' divergent-thinking skills; (2) the better adversity quotient on students' divergent-thinking skills; (3) the better adversity quotient to improve students' divergent-thinking skills in each learning model; and (4) the better learning model to improve students' divergent-thinking skills in each adversity quotient. This research uses a quantitative approach with a quasi-experimental type. The fifth-grade students were selected as the research subjects. This research was carried out at the public elementary schools in Laweyan District, Surakarta, Indonesia. Test and questionnaire techniques were used to collect data. The data analysis was performed with the analysis prerequisite, hypothesis, and multiple-comparison tests. The results showed that the learning model and adversity quotient have an influence on divergent-thinking skills; for each adversity quotient, the thinking actively in a social context learning model is better than the creative problem solving and direct instruction learning model; the creative problem solving learning model is better than the direct instruction learning model; and adversity quotient of the climbers is better than that of the campers and the adversity quotient of the campers is better than that of the quitters in each learning model.

The objectives of this study were to analyze the validity, practicality, and effectiveness of South Kalimantan local wisdom-based biology learning and its effect on student learning outcomes. The research method used is research and development. This research was in a Develop stage of Thiagarajan’s Model. This development has produced learning models (lesson plans, student’s worksheet, learning achievement test questions, teacher activity sheets, student activity sheets, and student response sheets). The local wisdom-based learning model were designed with seven stages using Banjar language (regional language of South Kalimantan). Model that have been developed were tested for the level of validity, practicality, effectiveness, and its effect in learning. The level of validity is determined based on the assessment and review of the four validators. To find out the effectiveness and the effect of the learning model, quasi-experimental design was applied by involving two classes at SMAN 7 Banjarmasin-Indonesia. Data were collected using a variety of instruments, namely the validity assessment sheet, the student’s worksheet and lesson plan sheets, student achievement test questions, and student response sheets. Data analysis was implemented to measure the effectiveness and the effect of learning by calculating n-Gain and ANCOVA, respectively. The results, the learning tools met the "valid" criteria so that it can be implemented. Learning also concluded having good practicality criteria. Moreover, it can be seen that the application of local wisdom-based learning model and tools was quite effective in improving student learning outcomes, in contrast to learning in the control class. Furthermore, ANCOVA test concluded that there were significant differences in learning outcomes between students in the experimental and the control class.

Problem-solving and mathematical communication are essential skills needed by students in learning mathematics. However, empirical evidence reports that students’ skills are less satisfying. Thus, this study aims to improve students’ problem-solving and mathematical communication skills using a Metacognitive-Based Contextual Learning (MBCL) model. A quasi-experimental non-equivalent control group design was used in this study. The participants were 204 fifth-grade students; consisting of experimental (n = 102) and control (n = 102) groups selected using convenience sampling. This study was conducted in four Indonesian elementary schools in the first semester of the academic year 2019/2020. The Problem-Solving Skills Test (PSST) and Mathematical Communication Skills Test (MCST) were used as pre- and post-tests. In order to analyze the data, one-way ANOVA was used at the 0.05 significance level. The results showed that students in the experimental group had higher post-test scores than the control group in terms of problem-solving and mathematical communication skills. It can be concluded that the MBCL effectively promotes fifth-grade students’ problem-solving and mathematical communication skills. Therefore, it is suggested that MBCL should be used more frequently in primary school mathematics to further improve students’ problem-solving and mathematical communication skills.

The study aims to investigate the evaluation model of professional leadership and the characteristics of successful principals at an Indonesian secondary school. It is to further realize the effective learning and to produce instruments that meet the validity and reliability tests. It also aims to discover the correlation and the significance of the independent variables on the dependent variables, and the percentage of influence on the indicators in shaping the model of principals’ leadership. Quantitative data were obtained by distributing questionnaires to 100 students. The number of respondents was determined using a simple random sampling technique. The research findings showed that there was a significant correlation among the principals’ leadership, characters, and effective learning. It indicated that leadership evaluation influenced the school leadership and the principals’ characters on effective learning. The results of the measurement on formative relationships showed that the indicators of behaviour and actions of school principals who manage the teachers to conduct learning activity seriously in the classroom became a determining factor in shaping the effective learning paradigm in secondary schools.

This study determined the challenging learning experiences of engineering students while completing their degree program as factor that might influence to their changing attitude towards achieving higher academic performance. Mixed method of research was utilised in the study considering the total population of 75 graduating students for quantitative and 12 students for qualitative part of the study using focus group discussion. Results showed that engineering students have significantly higher level of positive attitude towards academic performance during their junior level but significantly lower after taking professional courses. Attaining high academic performance still really matters for the engineering students during their junior level but continuously changing their perspective due to encountered challenging experiences while taking the professional courses. Performance in General Engineering courses describes the attitude of the students towards academic performance in personal aspect while professional courses define their attitude in professional aspect. The finding of the qualitative research revealed that there are three themes emerged in the challenging experiences of the engineering students and these are: Abandoned Social Freedom, Survival of the Fittest and Future Oriented Mindset which contributed to the changing perspectives of the engineering students.

This study aims to analyze students’ creative thinking skills in answering the problem-solving questions. This study employs qualitative design, involving 110 fifth graders in Malang Municipality and Regency as the subjects. The obtained data were analyzed using the descriptive-explorative approach. The findings reveal that the high-achievers in Mathematics showed good skills in the aspects of fluency and flexibility, but were still struggling in the novelty aspect.  The average-achievers showed good skills in flexibility aspects but were lacking in the fluency and novelty aspects. They showed an understanding of Mathematics problems but found it difficult to decide the solving strategies, and thus their answers were lacking in structure and less systematic. When solving a problem, the calculation made seemed rushing, was less careful, and frequented with trial and error strategy. The low-achievers showed difficulties in understanding the problems. Their answers were not systematic, not well-structured, and not detailed. This indicates that the low-achievers had not shown creative thinking skills in fluency, flexibility, and novelty aspects.

New Inquiry-Based Learning (NIBL) was developed to improve students’ multiple higher-order thinking skills (MHOTS), such as thinking critically, analytically, creatively, and practically (CACP). This study aimed to examine the increase of students’ MHOTS ability, their perceptions of the NIBL model, and the contribution of the NIBL model to the learning outcomes.  A quasi-experiment of the nonequivalent control group design was implemented in this study. Research subjects were university students majoring in chemistry education and enrolling in the Organic Chemistry course. The experiment and the control groups consisted of 34 and 32 students, respectively. The collected data were analyzed by using t-test and ANCOVA procedures. N-Gain scores were calculated to measure the differences in the increase in learning outcomes. Eta square values measured the contribution of NIBL. The results of this study revealed that there were differences in the learning outcomes of the experiment and control group. The CACP thinking skills and the mastery of organic chemistry concepts of the experiment group increased significantly. The N-Gain scores of practical thinking skills aspect were on medium category, and for critical, analytical, and creative thinking, as well as for mastery of organic chemistry concepts were on high categories. For the control group, the N-Gain scores of all categories were on low or medium categories. The NIBL model effectively improved the prospective chemistry teachers’ M-HOTS in terms of CACP thinking skills and contributed significantly to the increase in the students’ mastery of organic chemistry concepts.

The introduction, methods, results, and discussion (IMRaD structure) is a structure used by many journals and publishers in its publications since the early twentieth century. This research aims to survey and analyze some prestigious Open Access journals in the field of educational science in the world and in Vietnam on the use of IMRaD structure in presenting research results. We selected 05 open journals with the highest IF in the 2018 Scopus list and 05 prestigious journals in this field in Vietnam to conduct analysis of the articles in the latest 03 issues of these journals. The results of the survey of manuscript draft requirements and the frequency of articles written according to the IMRaD structure of the above journals show that: the IMRaD structure is commonly used in the articles in the field of Educational science in the world. However, in Vietnam, there is no journal that fully meets the contents compared to the basic IMRaD structure. The analysis of the content of articles published in journals in Vietnam shows that the weakest point of the researches is that the research methodology section is almost absent. Finally, we propose some solutions to improve scientific editing in Educational science journals in Vietnam to meet international publishing standards.

The investigation of epistemological beliefs has become important in both pre-service and in-service education of teachers. Different scales have been developed to determine teachers’ epistemological beliefs. The same scale yields different results in different cultures especially due to the cultural aspects of education. Therefore, testing the scales in different cultures contributes to their use. Within this framework, the scale developed by Schommer and adapted to Turkish culture by Deryakulu and Büyüköztürk was adapted to Kosovo culture. In the study, whether the Albanian, Bosnian and Turkish versions of the scale support the same factor structure was tested by employing the quantitative research method. First, the Epistemological Belief Scale was translated into Albanian and Bosnian and expert opinion was received. The scale was applied to 200 teachers who serve in schools where education languages are Albanian, Bosnian and Turkish. The scale comprised 35 items and 3 factors. Linguistic equivalence was prioritized, as the study was carried out in Kosovo. The Confirmatory Factor Analysis was employed to confirm the suitability of the three-factor structure of the scale. The analyses were carried out separately for each language and revealed acceptable fit indices. Reliability analysis produced satisfactory results.

As a part of learning process, project-based assessment (PBA) is determined to be a potential approach in higher education evaluation that focuses on developing the important objectives related to critical thinking, team working and problems solving skills. The aim of the paper is to find out students’ reflection and teachers’ beliefs towards using this project-based assessment method in teaching Intercultural Communication Competence (ICC). To collect the data, a project-based assessment design was applied for 124 English major students at B University in the 9 weeks ICC course. This project was implemented from the beginning of the course, and at the end of the course, learners’ products were performed with specific activities regarding culture knowledge competition, online cultural community activities, talent performance, situational judgment ability, and eloquence skills. In addition, a set of questionnaires were delivered to the participants, plus the interviews with 36 teachers who have taught culture-related subjects from the universities in Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia. The findings revealed that although there were certain challenges, using project-based assessment in teaching culture had satisfactory effects on students’ intercultural competence, problem- solving skills, critical thinking, and learning motivation.